The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #138 with Cory Sandhagen

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Joe is joined by Cory Sandhagen, a professional mixed martial artist competing in the UFC's Bantamweight division. 

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Mr. Sam Hangen. How are you? I'm good, how are you doing? You're on top of the world right now, dude. I'm a pretty happy guy right now. What a fight that was.

What a fight. That was, in my opinion, one of the most technical and one of the finest performances in that division. That 135-pound division to have a guy like you and Marlon go after it like that. That was a fucking great fight. Thank you. Really great fight. And you're on top of it right now, man. It's really exciting to watch.

Yeah, I'm getting pretty good. Yeah, for real like uh i've really been just plugging up some holes like figuring some some stuff out i feel like uh i'm at the part in the martial arts journey where i've gotten really good at being a really good learner like i can learn super fast and super efficiently now. And it's like big time paying off. Like not only that, but I also, the space I was in before that Cheeto fight was unlike one that I feel like I've ever been in in my life. How so? You know, have you read like a decent amount of sports psych books? Yes.

Where they'll sometimes talk about how you're almost having this out of body experience where you're almost like floating above the court or the field or whatever. It was almost like that, except I wouldn't use the word like floating above. But I got to a space in that fight where I felt like all of the thoughts and all of the distracting things that sometimes happen in a fight were completely ignored and this like higher being better version like best no thinker just actor was running the show like it's almost like I was watching the thing happen while I was in the fight and there would be bits of me hopping in and being like hey throw this combination hey take a little bit more of a risk hey do this And then that would get completely just watched. And this, whoever was fighting that night that didn't even feel like me

was the person that was fighting. It was fucking cool, man. Wow. It was cool, dude. It was like, you know, like a psychedelic experience feeling type of thing. It was cool. What do you attribute that to?

How did you get to that mindset? It's a lot of, you know, messing stuff up. Like, I remember the last time I was on was right after I had beaten Frankie. And I was in, it's just a bunch of different parts of the journey. And in that part of the journey, I was really in this space where if I could make myself more war if I could make myself more angry if I could make make myself be up here I would have success that kind of stopped working a little bit after uh like around the TJ fight and then kind of during the Jan fight and then definitely I tried to be that guy against Song and it was like too much of a distracting feeling where now my mindset's going into the last fight because it was such like a distracting feeling, just feeling like I have to get myself to a point of anger or upness before a fight where it just became distracting, where it was helpful before it became distracting in that song fight. I bailed on that. And I just tried to be as mindful and as present as I

possibly could. Um, for like, and I know that those are like kind of corny words now, but, uh, there is some real substance to them, uh, when, when they're like really done well. And I would say maybe about six weeks before the fight, I had this moment where I was sitting on the couch because I put a lot of pressure on myself and I want to be a world champ real bad, where I was to the point where I wasn't enjoying any part of the camp, any part of the experience of fighting or anything and I was sitting on the couch and I just like I think I was crying a little bit and I was like I can't fucking do this for the next five years of my life you know like I can't do this for the rest

of my career and I was like well what's got to change and I was like I gotta lose I gotta take this pressure off of me and I gotta start enjoying every day a lot more than I am right now and from that like six weeks before the fight I started doing that and I really think that that carried into the fight and it made me be a lot less tense a lot less tight and it made me be able to fight with just like a completely free way of being. Wow. And is this something that you had previously thought that you could get to that space or wanted to get to that space? Or is this something that you kind of experimented along the way and found this path? I'm a self learner. Uh, and, and I think that, uh, I think that there's ways of being in life that like, you just kind of have to be at certain

times. Like when you're a young kid, like you have to be like going and hitting it hard. Like you have to remember all of the hundreds of thousands of people on the other half of the world that are trying to accomplish the same goal as you. And you have to be a little bit, in my opinion, you have to be a little bit on the neurotic side of like, am I doing every single thing correct? Am I doing, am I putting the right amount of pressure on me? That's totally a part of the journey, but I'm kind of more in the part of the journey where I've matured a lot as a fighter. I've matured a lot as a person. I'm getting married this year. Like I'm a little bit older. We're looking at kids probably in the next couple of years. And so I had to start thinking like,

what's sustainable like what's like a sustainable way to continue doing what I love but also becoming like a more mature adult and that's just part of the journey that I'm in right now and I don't think that anything was wrong with the way that I was doing before but it just is like a moving target all the time. So it's like you're just finding new ways to approach it and then realizing this way is better than the other way, even though the other way was effective, this is even more effective. So you're constantly trying to tweak it.

Yeah, and I think that everything kind of has its purpose. In those times where I was really embracing this war mentality, this very bloodthirsty, vicious type of fighter that I was trying to be when best martial artist that I can, because I do feel like I've pointed all of my energy in my life and my mind and my spirit and everything towards the direction of being the best martial artist that I can be. And so going through that had its purpose, man. Like I had to figure out what it was like for me to be like a vicious killer, you know, because in society that's like not cool, you know, so like almost like The shadow self or whatever is like the subconscious term for it I had to like experience that I experienced it. I figured out that it was no longer serving me It was being distracting. So what do I need to do now now? It's like okay

You figured that part out you can be that guy whenever you want to be that guy. But now we're being present. Now we're enjoying it. And you don't really need to be that guy until you walk into the cage. And even when you do walk into the cage, you don't need to be this really dramatic, super emphasized, vicious guy. Be that guy, but you don't have to overdo it. And when you're learning something, I almost feel like you have to completely overdo it in order to learn like where that cutoff is like even in technique like if you could do an arm bar and win every single time with an arm bar why would you ever stop doing arm bars right it'd be stupid so like

you figure out how to like do something way overdo it figure out where the cutoff is and be like okay I can't do it in like those situations you You pull back, you figure out what situations you need to do it in, and then you move forward. What was this? What happened? I lost, can you hear me? My headphones cut out. Hold on. Check, check, check, check, check, check. Something happened over here, Jamie. I don't know what's going on, but I lost the headphones. something happened over here, Jamie. I don't know what's going on, but I lost the headphones. We'll be right back, folks. Sorry about that.

No, that's okay. So where were we at? So what was it about the other way you were approaching it where, you know, last time you were here, you had just embraced this idea that you went in there with the intention to fuck people up. What was distracting about that? It's like a hot burning flame. You know, like I feel like it's, I can only hold on to it for so long.

Like I can't really, like it's a lot of energy to be that up. And so when I would be in the back getting warmed up, because you kind of, you don't know exactly when you're going to walk. So I try to be ready, ready you know like 20 minutes before it's been like 30 40 minutes warming up trying to be that guy and then for 20 minutes trying to sustain that guy and that's like a long time to be that up you know so even in the in this fight uh because there's no preparing for that last hour before you go walk like i don't care what type of guy you are how zen you can be or how confident you are that that last hour before a fight like your mind's gonna fuck with you a lot and it's gonna go to you thinking that you're the

god of the universe to you thinking that like you're about to go get slaughtered and in the back before if I started to feel like I was you know having those like impulsive thoughts of like fear or you're about to go get slaughtered i try to just cover that shit up real quick by getting like real pissed um and that's like a lot of energy to do so before the cheeto fight i was super proud of the way that i was able to handle those feelings because those feelings are like real as hell when you're in the back. And how do you handle them? Well, I just watched a man like I just realized like, OK, like I'm having I'm having this sense of fear in me. And I would just kind of sit there and be like, OK, well, I'm not really fighting right now.

So just let the fear be there right now. Your job is to get warmed up. And so I just took it. OK, right now I'm getting really fighting right now. So just let the fear be there right now. Your job is to get warmed up. And so I just took it. Okay. Right now I'm getting warmed up. Okay. They said 10 more minutes till we walk. Okay. I'm having the sense of fear still. That's okay. I'm still in the back and then step by step by step. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm walking out now. Cool. Okay. Looking across from them. Okay. Touch gloves. now we're fighting it's literally it sounds super fucking simple but it's just step by step by step man just like okay i'm having that sense i'll just watch that and not really ignore i mean you acknowledge it but you don't i i didn't i don't try to cover it up or i don't try to like be someone else i just kind of watch it as if it

was just someone else it happened into someone else and then just move on. It doesn't sound super simple at all. Not to me at least. I know what you're saying. And that feeling has got to be like riding a wild wave. Like you just got to maintain your balance. And to watch you go into that fight, what was so impressive, besides the fact that you're fighting a world-class guy in Marlon Vera and you were controlling the action, was the overwhelming amount of information you were throwing at him. constantly switching stances and everything was you know there's fighters kind of sometimes they'll

fall into a pattern and you can kind of predict that pattern there was no pattern with you it was all over the place and it was so overwhelming when i was watching i was like jesus christ like this is so high level and i don't i mean for like a casual i don't know if they're seeing that but for someone who watches a lot of fights and has been around martial arts my whole life, when I was watching, I was like, this is about as high level as it gets. Thank you.

You were mixing shit up so well. The way you were choosing your attacks, whether it was the low kick or whether it was punches and the switch stance to punches, the shot. It was amazing, man. It was really fucking good. It was really fun to watch because it wasn't just that you were doing that, but you were doing that for five fucking rounds.

Like you never varied. You never slowed down. There was never, like, breathers. It was just a full-on assault of all of his reactions and all of his, you know, ability to read you. It was like, attack, bang, hit there. Okay, trying to settle. Boom, this coming in. Now there's a shot. It was like there was no breaks.

Yeah, it was pretty awesome, man. It was pretty fucking wild. Yeah, it was pretty wild. I think that that's always going to be one of my stronger points is that I can make decisions a lot faster than other people. I honestly think that that's what makes good people from great people. Because good people can do, they can make the right decisions and continue to make them, continue to make them, continue to make them. But at some point, the person that's better at doing those things is going to surpass that person eventually. It might not happen early.

It could take some time. And against some of the best guys in the world, it's going to take some time. But eventually, your processing speed will outpower theirs. And I think that I do that really, really well. I think that my training has a lot to do with that too. What is different about your training? All of the conditioning that I do, the conditioning parts that I take really seriously are the sparring days.

I used to hit mitts real hard, and I still do a strength and conditioning workout once a week. That's like 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds, minute rest, you know, stuff like that. But there's no getting tired like there is getting tired and sparring. So I'll do, if I usually do 10 week camps, the first week I just knock the rust off, you know, and then I do two seven weeks or two seven round weeks. So we spar Tuesday, Fridays, I do seven rounds those days. And then the next two weeks, I do eight rounds, both of those days. And then I'll do like six and then the rest of them five because I want to get used to five. But in those seven round weeks,

and those eight round weeks, those are hard as fuck, man. Like I get like, I try to get so tired where I'm just like, I can't, I don't feel like I can make decisions anymore. And I really think that having the concentration to focus for those 40 minutes makes it way easier for me to focus in the 25 minutes, you know, like, it's, you know, I don't really know if that's science or not. But I definitely think that if I can stay focused for 40 minutes, 25 minutes, we'll feel like nothing. So I really, I really pushed myself there. And is this a strategy or is this a program that you've just developed over trial and error?

Yeah, I make my own shit up pretty much, you know, pretty much, you know, like I, so Christian Allen was my coach. He's like the guy with always the crazy haircut kind of built like me.

Christian Allen has always was my coach. He's like the guy with always the crazy haircut, kind of built like me.namurti, like, just like free, free thinkers. So he always instilled in me this and tried to empower this ability inside me to think for myself, because I think that a lot of people don't really do that in the sport. To be honest with you, I think that a lot of them get their hand held by their coaches, which is totally one way to do it. And honestly, a lot of people do need that. But I was never taught to be that way. I was taught to be the quarterback of my own game, not like someone that takes orders. He instilled that in me big time. So I kind of, I tweak things and handle a lot of the way that I do things in camp by myself. I, of course, have people around me that I know love me a lot and care about me enough to tell me what they think I should do, and I will listen to them if I think that they're right.

But a lot of it is me just kind of being like a lone wolf in life and in martial arts a little bit and me just figuring stuff out myself. So do you think that's because, well, obviously nobody knows you better than you and you're absorbing all these techniques from all these different people and all these strategies from these different coaches, but ultimately it's up to you to execute with your mind and your body. And so you've just decided the best way to do that is to absorb all this information, but even maybe more important do it yourself yeah definitely um yeah what's the bruce lee quote it's like uh accept what's useful discard what's not useful and then make it your own or whatever

it is um that's like martial arts you know like that Yeah. That's what Christian taught me from when I first started when I was 17 years old. And I think it's the way to do it, man. Like, I really do. Like, when I think about other sports and how they compare, I don't think, like, at the very highest level, when I watch interviews of, like, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or, like, Tom Brady and all of those guys, those guys are

interacting with their coaches much differently than a lot of other players and coaches will interact with each other, where it's not, the coach isn't telling the player what to do. The coach and the player are interacting, I think, when you get to a certain level. And me and my coaches kind of, sometimes we'll get into it, you know, like, I'll be like, hey, man, like, I don't think that that's like a reliable way to go about doing things. Because I think building like I use the word reliable a lot, like when I'm coaching people, because you don't want, you don't want tricks, you know, like tricks are okay. You want things that are reliable. And so that's like what I shoot for when I'm trying to like learn techniques and learn different things is it's like, is this reliable or is this kind of like a tricky thing that like will sometimes work?

And I always shoot for reliable. So I'll get into it with my coaches sometimes like, hey, Banks, like, I don't know if that's that reliable. Can you give me an example of something that's not that reliable? Sure, sure. Let's say like a like a low single you know or like a uh um i i think it i think honestly it happens a lot more in striking because i think that because there's because people really don't understand the inner workings of how striking works people want to use tricks and tricks will work a lot until you get someone that like catches on to your shit.

So like I think like let's say just for example in striking like any combination really like that's kind of more. It's not a trick, but it's a it's a set thing where things have to go really right in order for it to work 100 percent of the time. where things have to go really right in order for it to work 100% of the time. And I don't really think that that's the approach that you should take in striking. I think that the approach to striking should be reliable things. It should address space, it should address position, and it should address angles. And those are the three areas of striking and the inner workings of striking that don't really get talked about because a lot of it is taught in a very tricky way

because tricks are very digestible for people where the inner workings of things are very conceptual and hard to understand. When you say that most people don't understand striking, what do you mean by that? Okay, so I think that there's, there's things that are happening in striking matches that are, like I said, not very digestible. So like I said, so there's space, there's position, and then there's your advantages. Space is, is like, and I hear people talk about rhythm all the time. Rhythm is just closing space, going away from space,

closing space, going away from space. Space is key because striking happens with your eyes. Striking is like, we're playing this game, like, hey, hit my hand, and I'm moving it around. That's why switching stances works so well, and we can get into that in a little bit, but space is your reaction time because striking happens with your eyes instead of grappling like if someone's leaning into me I have like the proprioception to feel they're leaning into me. Let me move like this

It doesn't happen with your eyes in striking. It happens with your eyes. I see your punches coming I know to block so the more space I have and the better I can maintain and control space or so the more space I have and the better I can maintain and control space or manipulate space by closing it quickly or or using it at the same time you close I close where I could be twice as fast um the more the more success I'm I'm going to have um uh so for example like um I I just don't think that people are understanding space in a way where it's like it is your like reaction time. So if you get closer to like if you're standing over there and I'm standing here, it's not scary if you throw a punch at me because I have plenty of time to react to that punch. Where if me and you are standing right next to each other, that's like super scary no matter who you are, you know. standing right next to each other that's like super scary no matter who you are you know um so space is reaction time and i really don't think that a lot of people see space like that

they see space like oh yeah like you're at the end of my jab that's when i can hit you everything is about like can i hit you this and that uh where like the defensive piece of striking isn't really harped on as much because again it's like not as digestible and then there's of course like position like my position and then your position my position according to your position so like lefty righty righty lefty lefty lefty righty righty and all of that is important because if you're in a different stance than I am the targets change like what you throw is different than like like the attacks that you'll have are very different than the ones that we would have if we're in the same stance if we're in the opposite stance I don't think that people would necessarily pick up on

those things too I don't think people super understand position as like my guard like where am I open if I stand like this and where am I open if I stand like this? And where am I open if I stand like this? The advantages like being a little bit outside your shoulders on each side so that I can take angles a little bit easier. If I'm standing over here, I know you're going to correct yourself here. So I'm going to step here. You're going to correct. I'm going to step here. And then eventually I'll be able to build off of attacks. But that to me is what striking is striking isn't it's a positional battle and it's a battle for space and it's not like combinations and it's not set things not set things yeah so what your your style is very uh stance switch dependent. You do that as good as anybody alive. And it's such a valuable asset.

And more fighters are embracing that now than ever before. But there's something about that. If you're accustomed to standing southpaw or you're accustomed to standing orthodox and you're accustomed to facing fighters that are southpaw or orthodox, you get, like, used to attacks coming from different places. But when you're doing it, you're mixing shit up so much that you can see this overwhelming thing that's happening to the opponent. You could see, like, one of the things Chito said, he couldn't get started.

But the reason why he couldn't get started, in my opinion, he's a great fighter, but it was you. It was because you were constantly feeding him with reads and information, and it was never-ending. So there was no break where he gets to find his openings, no break where he gets to initiate. It was just overwhelming. Yeah, super overwhelming.

That's what that can do. Because like I said, you read it with your eyes. So if I'm switching my stance all the time, the target is changing all the time. Like if you're in a righty stance, and I'm in a righty stance also, the targets are different. Like your right kick is going to land on the outside of my leg. If I switch lefty, it's going to kick to the inside of my leg. I know that you know this, but if I'm constantly switching those targets all the time, it makes for a hell of a time for you. And I started switching really, really early. I used to really like watching Nenito Diner, the boxer.

And he kind of switches a lot. A lot of his steps are switches. I used to love watching Nino De Niro I thought it was super creative and uh like switching stances now at this point I think in martial arts is almost like a non-negotiable like you you have to be able to do it um but it just changes the target it changes my weapons like so much where like if you can't keep up it's just gonna like fry your brain hmm and I felt that with Cheeto you know I felt like anytime he started to understand my movements I would just

change or I would start level changing or I would start doing something different so that he couldn't get an opportunity to be like that's what I need to do because then I would just change it, and then he'd have to figure out something else. One of the things that was fascinating about that fight to me is that it's so obvious that even though you have physical skills and he has physical skills, it was your mind. It was strategy, and it was execution.

There was a lot going on there that was important to you winning that fight, and it wasn't just your physical ability. It was really like the best example of what I love about MMA, which is that it's high level problem solving. And you were creating all these problems and he didn't have answers to some of them. And you had answers to his problems and that's a mental game and that that's to me what's so fascinating about fighting and for the people don't understand from the outside that are just casual fans is like this is a complex interaction between two people that move very fast and any error that you make one way or another running into a right hand running into a knee running into this and and you're really good at setting people up for that like the frankie fight's a

great example of that that to me is what's exciting about mma and so when i see a guy like you that i clearly see like oh this motherfucker's on another level like you hit something like whatever it is like we're talking about this mindset change or it's just this stacking upon skills and layers and experience until you get to this championship form. There's a really exciting time when a fighter comes into that championship form, and that's what I saw in that fight. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. Yeah, I don't really know what it is either.

I think that I've definitely just matured a lot as a fighter. I think that that's like a big piece of it too. I took a lot of pressure off my shoulders. I'm like a phenomenal learner, to be honest. Like if I do toot my own horn, I think that that's something that I'm really good at. Is that because you're open? Because you're obsessed? I'm obsessed.

I'm very thoughtful. I don't think I'm a smart guy. Like I think that I read a lot of books so i speak kind of okay and then uh but i'm not smart like uh they in first grade they used to take me to another room to like learn how to read you know i used to have to like ask my mom like hey like why do i read it like different books than the other kids you know? So I'm not a smart guy. Like I, I never did good in school. But I'm thoughtful and you could use the word obsessed too, but I think I'm incredibly thoughtful about the way that I'm going about doing things like in life, in fighting. I try to be super, super intentional. I try, like I make notes every Monday and Saturday. I make notes on Monday. I make notes

of the things that I'm working on. You know, like a to-do list, like sometimes how I'm doing all of that stuff. But I'm super organized in the way that I'm like trying to learn and the things that I'm trying to like progress in, whether they're technical things, uh, mental things or whatever. And then I recap all of those things on Saturday, made sure that I did them. And then I write down what worked, what didn't work, what I need to continue to drill, what I should pull back on because I don't think it's really worth the time because there are so many techniques and some things just aren't worth the time at certain points. So I'm super thoughtful. I'm super organized. And I think that that's probably one thing that separates me is because I, like, everyone wants it kind of the same. Everyone's a really good athlete.

Everyone works really hard physically. But, like, there's got to be some X factors. Like, it has to be everything if you really want to, like, be a world champ, like I say that I want to be. When did you start doing this note-taking thing? Probably seven or eight years ago. Seven or eight years ago is when I started working with my sports psychologist. He kind of turned me on to it. I also used to train a lot with Dwayne too and Dwayne would like always be writing stuff down. Dwayne Ludwig, he's obsessed. Yeah, Dwayne's super obsessed too. That guy's an amazing coach. Yeah. He really is. When you look at his system, when he's got his, his bang

Muay Thai system and he brought out his notebook and he showed me all those, I'm like, Jesus Christ, who the fuck does this? Yeah. When you look at all of his combinations and what sets what up and the way he has it, like I was very impressed with that. That's like the thoughtfulness that I'm talking about. You know, like, uh, that's like the thoughtfulness that i'm talking about yeah you know like uh that's like just a different level of caring and like a different way of showing that you care is just like like i do that too you know like i write down like how striking works uh i'm hopefully gonna be filming some instructionals pretty soon so i've really been like spending hours and hours and hours writing down like how i think striking actually works outside of the way that it's being taught now. So when you are in the process of a camp, when you set out a camp and you're doing

this 10 week program, do you have everything planned out like from the moment the camp starts? More or less. And is it mostly you that's planning everything out yes um yeah uh that's like me being the quarterback you know like uh i take full responsibility for everything that i do in life you know like uh if if i'm not getting takedowns it's not my wrestling coach's fault it's my own fault because i i know i'm being taught correct things um I've surrounded myself with good people that are teaching me the right thing. So I don't ever worry about like not being taught the right things. If I don't get good at something, I like almost feel pathetic

because I'm like, man, this guy's like with the wrestling, like if Banks has to tell me something week by week by week, I start to feel like pathetic. I'm like, why am I not getting better at this? So I take responsibility for every single thing. That way there's no one for me to blame except for myself if I lose. And that's another thing that I don't know that a lot of people are doing too. That also causes me to get into it with some people sometimes too, which is fine also. Because they know I love them and they know, and I know that they love me. So it's not really like a big deal when we do get into it, but

I, I write down, yeah, week by week, what I'm doing, what my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday looks like when I'm doing my visualizations. Uh, I, I incorporate like a decent amount of self-hypnosis type things that I like doing too. Uh, I, I write down when I'm doing that. I write down when I'm flying training partners in, when I'm going out to Virginia to train with Ryan. Um, yeah, pretty, it's pretty much like to the, to the T written out. When you say self-hypnosis, like what are you doing there? Uh, they're like, um, so a lot of them, so this dude Michael Seeley on YouTube does them. They're just like 50 to like an hour and 15 minute hypnosis where they like calm you down for like the first 15, 20 minutes.

They try to get you super present. And then I enjoy, there's all different kinds of them, but I like, I enjoy doing the ones where they like almost walk you through like finding your spirit animal or like going on astral travel or something like this. I think that there's a lot of substance to getting to a really calm place and then letting your imagination kind of like feed you what's kind of going on deeper inside of you. And I do a decent amount of those which sounds a little bit funky and a little bit weird but i've had some super intense uh experiences by just literally laying there put my headphones in and listening to this dude talk on youtube well i'd imagine that's i feel like when you're at your level and one of the things that's exciting about what's going on right now in the band and weight division is that there's so much talent. It might be the most talent stack division in the UFC. It's hard to say

because 55 is great. 45 is great. There's a lot of amazing divisions, but from my money, I think 35 might be the motherfucker because there's just so many guys. There's Marab, there's Piotr, there's Marlon, there's you, there's Aljamain, there's Sohudo's in there now. And there's all these guys coming up, too, that are super high level. Chris Gutierrez, there's some fucking killers. And everyone recognizes that the level is so high in that division. And they see a fight like your fight with Marlon or Marab's fight with Piotr, and it's like, Jesus Christ, man.

If you want to compete in that division, you've got to have everything right. You have to dot your I's and cross your T's. You've got to get that fucking exact amount of rest. You've got to do everything. Hell yeah. Everything. expertise you got to get that fucking exact amount of rest you got to do everything hell yeah everything yeah this is just the most insane pressure cooker that i think any division has ever had because i feel like there's like eight world champions competing for the number one spot

any one of these guys could be a world champion any one of these guys and in another time period would be a world champion but because of what's happening in MMA right now because the skill sets are so high and the talent level is so high that everyone's recognizing that you're seeing these fucking insane breakthrough performances like every time from these guys like Marab versus Piotr like you versus Marlon these breakthrough performances are just like where everybody else is like god damn gotta go back to work because it's just so pressure intensive. I know. It's actually really awesome.

Like I reflect on that sometimes where I'm like, damn, man, like you're in the hottest division in the biggest organization in like the most badass sport right now. Yeah. And that's fucking cool, man. Like when I reflect on that, it's awesome. And it also is like, it's literally going to bring out, it has to bring out the best in me for the next rest of my career. Like it's absolutely has to. Like it's not one of those divisions where it's like,

I'm going to beat that guy. I'm going to beat that guy. Like literally all the way up and like past the outside the top 15. I'm like, man, if you're not on your P's and Q's and you're not working your ass off like you were a 21 year old kid, you're going to be fucked. And so like that, I wouldn't have it any other way, man. Like that's what's going to bring out the best in me. And I'm like super just grateful that I get to be a part of it while it's actually happening.

And it's kind of like feels surreal that that's the scenario. It's awesome. It's awesome that you're embracing it like that, because it's awesome for me as a fan to watch this happen, because I think it's very unique. I think it's very special. It's like, you remember back in, like there's a Showtime documentary on the golden age of like when Hagler was fighting Leonard and, and Hearns was fighting Duran and Duran was fighting Hagler. And these guys, they all fed off of each other, but it was only a few of them. Like the UFC right now,

it's a goddamn carnival. I mean, there's, there's a fucking massive crowd of assassins that are all competing. And you'll see these new Bantamweights that come into the UFC and, you know, they might have 16, 17 fights outside the organization. And then you'll see them in theirantamweights that come into the UFC and you know they might have 16 17 fights outside the organization and then you'll see them in their debut you're like

Jesus Christ this guy's world-class world-class already first fight in the UFC I mean that that to me is so exciting because this sport is the only sport that you could really name that if you go back to 1993 and you look at it from 2023, you're looking at a massive evolution in the game. Massive. Massive. I mean, not even comparable. There's not a single person from 1993 that looks like they're a world champion in 2023.

But if you go back to 1993 in boxing, you got a lot of world champions. You got Oscar De La Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez. You got fucking assassins who can compete in any division or in any rather era at any time in boxing. You don't have that in the UFC. You have this complete new kind of thing that's emerging and evolving. And you're seeing these top performers that are just reaching total new heights. Yeah, it's cool. It's in that period of history where... So I'm sure that all the sports went through this, but wrestling is pretty standard.

There's certain things that work really, really well. And of course, people go outside the box sometimes, but there's a proven system of what works. Where I feel like in MMA, we're not at that point yet you know like we're kind of like we're all in this like discovery like yeah who's gonna figure out how to make this thing work the best you know like that's almost what i feel like the race is right now yeah where the race is like like i said man everyone works hard everyone's pretty athletic you know like everyone kind of has like their little quirks and like the ways that they do everyone works hard. Everyone's pretty athletic. Everyone kind of has their little quirks and the ways that they do things or whatever, but who's going to figure out how to be the best system of MMA? Because every other sport I feel like has done that. That's why most soccer games look like all the other soccer games. But in fighting, not all the fights look like the same fights. And I think that that's just because it's in this realm of just full-blown creativity,

which is because we're just trying to figure out who's going to get the best system first. It's pretty fun. It really is fun. It's so fun to watch. And I think that's really important what you just said is creativity because that's a big part of this overwhelming style that you have is that it's creative is that you're you're doing things that are unexpected but standard like you're doing punches kicks takedowns but unexpected so you're finding a way to deliver these things inside of these spaces and movements and stance switches it's fucking wild to see man and it's just it's so exciting to witness this

growth of this what i think is the greatest sport that's ever existed and to watch it blossom and bloom and become what it is now it totally is man like uh fighting's the best sport in the world man there's nothing in my opinion there's no other sport that's more inspiring either like uh it's one like fighting's entertaining as hell but like how inspiring is it when you watch like a guy like volk go fight islam up a weight class you know like how inspiring is that sometimes i wonder if that's just me but i don't really think it is, man. I think it inspires the world. That's a Rocky movie. Yeah, seriously, man.

Like Israel taking on Perea this week. Like how inspiring, man. Like the guy's lost to him three times and he's like, he knows, man. Like he knows that if he loses again, like he's probably not going to fight for a title for a little bit. Yeah.

That shit's inspiring, dude. Like how much higher can the stakes get? Can't get any higher. fight for a title for a little bit yeah that shit's inspiring dude like how high can how how much higher can the stakes get can't get any higher have you been watching his training footage uh i've been watching some of the embeddeds he's got uh his own channel um i think it's called freestyle bender and he puts up all these videos of all the shit that they're doing and this motherfucker is going so hard yeah he's going so like you can see he's just broken at the end of some of these sets and training sessions it's just he's going as hard as he possibly can with this mindset that there's there's a way to conquer this guy there's a way to beat this guy and i'm so fucking pumped i i can't i'm mad i mean it's

two fucking days away i know it's two days away hell yeah oh you are nice i can't wait lucky i know i thought about going and then i bet i'm gone too many weekends but man i can't wait i can't wait and masvidal and burns i kind of want to see who wins that fight too that's a very interesting fight it's it's going to be interesting to see if masvidal can handle the burns takedowns and burns aggression it's just where's masvidal in his career? You know, I mean, he looked great in fights in the past, but then, you know, you see the fight with Kamaru, he gets KO'd, and then he loses the fight to Colby, he gets overwhelmed.

Like, where's he at right now? He's older. I think, did he say he's 38? 37 or 38? You know, at a certain point in time, you can't do it anymore the same way. That's what he was saying too,

right? He was saying if he loses, this will probably be his last one. Yeah. Dude, did you used to watch all of those videos of like the street fights

before kind of, dude, when I was thinking, because I get asked, you know, sometimes like, hey, how'd you get into MMA?

I don't ever have like an interesting story, you know? I'm like, well, I used to watch Kimbo knock people's eyeballs out in backyards. Remember that video, dude? Holy shit.

That was crazy. Yeah, that was crazy. They were like fighting near a satellite dish. There's all sorts of stuff in the backyard. They're going to move around things. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember there was like a stint in my like teenage years where I just would watch World Star Hip Hop. Like, did you ever get on world star hip-hop oh yeah yeah yeah yeah where it would just be like fight compilations and i would just watch for like 40 minutes just like people beat the shit out of each other on the streets and i thought it was so awesome that's like what got me into fighting i was like oh yeah i want to fuck some people up like that that looks cool it's funny that that got you in but your style is so intelligent yeah it's like your style is like high level chess but that's just madness yeah

i mean i think every teenage i mean the fantasy i think for most dudes that don't fight is they just want to like you know like be tough like everyone wants to be like tough you know and uh fighting is the best way to be tough. And when I was like younger and just watching that, it was like, fuck yeah, I want to be like so tough and like kill people the way that those people do. And you know. What's fucked that most people don't understand

is the amount of work that's involved just to get your body physically prepared to be able to fight for 25 minutes is so taxing to the mind. It's so grueling for your just everything gets tested. Your ambitions get tested, your will, your fortitude, your commitment, your distractions, your self-hate and loathing, your self-love, your ego. Everything gets tested. I can't think of another sport where people go in and probably worry or have to like be super concerned about how tired they're going to get. Like, can you?

Like, I like think about like basketball, football, you know, like other sports, there's always substitutes. Like, that's like a major demon to conquer on your way up in mma is like how do i not be scared of getting tired as hell because it's the most tiring shit in the world especially when you're coming up and like you're nervous and fights and you don't really know what you're doing your technique isn't as good and i don't i can't think of another sport where they really where you have to go in and be like man if i get tired i'm gonna get tired, I'm gonna get my ass kicked. Like literally get my ass kicked. That's like another thing that makes MMA cool. It is. And that mental battle and wondering whether or not you've done enough in camp, because there's some guys, there's some guys that are very, very talented, but they, they're not very disciplined. And those guys,

you could always see that moment where the other guy is in shape and they start to doubt and start to think about maybe I ate too many donuts. Maybe slept in missed a few training sessions that i could have gone to and now i don't have the gas tank and this guy's coming after me yeah that's a horrible spot to be in it's a horrible spot to be in and there's another thing about mma is the management of your energy in a fight and this these calculated maneuvers of when to burst and when to take your foot off the gas and when when to know like have an understanding of your body like what it's capable of at any given moment and it's one of the things that drives me nuts about bad refereeing like say if someone has a big burst for and shoots for a takedown massive struggle gets it to the ground and then

is trying to intelligently move to a place where they could do damage but the other person is defending well and then the referee interferes and stands them up i'm like jesus fucking christ do you know how hard it is to get someone to the ground and if that person is having a hard time on the bottom they should probably get up figure out how to get up but for you to just the boos of the casuals and and you're like come on stand them up stand them up and you just interfere in a fight it drives me nuts i i can't i don't really think that they fully understand what it's like from like a fighter's point of view to be like finally I got this motherfucker down right and then like to have them stand back up and then you got to do the shit again yeah and on top of that maybe you know you empty the gas tank a little bit doing that and this guy's fresh and then

you get kicked yeah you know and then all fucking you're now your legs compromised now you're switching stances and they're trying to relax but now this guy's turning it on now you have to switching stances. Now you're trying to relax, but now this guy's turning it on. Now you have to eat up the gas that you were trying to conserve, and now you're moving. It's unnatural. It's like there was an unnatural intervention in the exchange, and that was a referee.

I know. I always think about how, because everyone talks about the judging and all that, I always wonder how that could actually be like, again, like reliably fixed to where it's not, we're not just like guessing or we're not, you know, like, and it seems like super hard, but I don't, I don't, I think that the problem isn't with the criteria as much as it is with the, uh, the actual rules. Like I almost feel like, like say you work real hard, you get a takedown and there's three minutes left on the clock and then there's just so much uh ambiguity as to like how much is enough damage that like there's so much ambiguity happening that unfortunately because it'll

mess up some other things i almost feel like you have to add in rules where like uh okay so i get stood up if i can make it so that this guy can't punch me for 30 seconds or whatever amount of time it is or something. But I almost feel like those types of problems only will get solved by rules. They won't get solved by this like ambiguity where like the ref can kind of make whatever decision and each ref is different and each crowd is different and they're just making a bunch of decisions. So think that someone not me should sit down and really think about you know making it really clear and really straightforward about like the rules so that that kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore yeah i think in that sense that it is too subjective it's too

subjective and too many referees have different ideas of what's acceptable and also you can see referees reacting to the crowd You've seen we all see that I think that's ridiculous. That shouldn't that should never judges do yes for sure There's a lot of bad judging Jesus Christ some of these decisions lately where you know Like who gave Marlon the fight? I Who gave Marlon the fight? I don't know. Somebody gave Marlon the fight. Yeah, yeah, I know. That's fucking insane.

I want you to imagine if there's three people who gave Marlon that fight. I know. What if one other dude fucked up that night? Because that guy obviously fucked up. But imagine if it was someone else and I went home a loser, like scratching my head. Insane. Insane.

Insane. Yeah, that's pretty scary. One of the best performances of your career in a fight where everybody who watched thought you won everybody like the the idea of giving that to marlon and i'm a marlon fan he didn't win that fight you won that fight it's clear so whoever the fuck that judge is you're not doing that anymore like you you could ruin careers you could take away win bonuses you know yeah they they need a universal uh they need a universal commission yes like i really think that that should because i i almost wonder like why the ufc hasn't done it yet because

if i was a ufc it would be in my best interest to make sure that everyone's on the same page so that uh someone doesn't like mess something up like because that fight very well if one other person got it wrong just one other person i could have lost and then like that would have changed a lot of stuff man because uh it just would have you know like people care about wins and losses i i almost feel like they're you know someone should look into making a universal commission so that the rules are laid out clear. We have 10 judges that we use at this time. The judges are completely 100% on the same page about what's winning, what's not winning.

That way all of the fighters know that because right now it's just commissions from different states just deciding on whatever rules they want to do. And I really think that like step one is universal commission. I think there's another step that needs to be taken and that's an abandonment of the 10 point must system. I think that system is not our system. That system is a system that's applicable to boxing and it works great with boxing. You're, you're dealing with two weapons. You have just punches. You have a bunch of different ways to apply those punches, but you have a left hand

and a right hand. That's it. There's so many more things going on in MMA. It's exponential in boxing because of all the different skill sets and the different weapons and how they get applied and what's more valuable than the other thing. I think it should be a very comprehensive system. And I think there should be way more than three judges. I think there's a real good argument to have something like 10 judges. And have, because like, and experts. and have because like an experts I mean

guys like yeah I mean if you can get I don't know for us a hobby would do it but like that level of expert you know the guys like safe Saud these fucking world-class coaches and and trainers have guys like that judge fights yeah you'll get a real solid understanding and if you have 10 of those 99.9 of the time you're gonna get the right winner but if you have three and no disrespect but some of these people just shouldn't be judging if someone judged marlin winning over you they should not be judging an mma fight because they either they're not paying attention maybe they're on drugs but they definitely didn't see what i saw so it doesn't make any sense to me.

Even with the 10-point must system, which is a fucked up system. But if we had a system that tallied all the different takedown attempts, all of the different strikes, and it was a point system. So instead of 10-9, you're dealing with 162 versus 120. The next round, 195 versus 170 and you look at it in that way where you could tally it up at the end sure and look at it i also think there's something that pride had that we really should take into consideration that you judge the fight as a whole and that the last parts of the fight are probably the most important parts. Like when you saw Volkanovski on top of Islam at the end of the fight, pounding on him, that is fucking gigantic.

That matters. That matters, because if this is a schoolyard, the schoolyard analogy, the teachers come and break it up, and you're on top, you fucking won. No one's going to say, Islam won that fight, we got him. No, you didn't. No, the teachers stopped the fight with Volkanovski on top of you punching you in the face. He won that fight.

That's a great point. Everybody who saw that at the end was like, Volk got him. Yeah, that's a great point. I even look back to Gaethje and Fazeev's fight. Like, mega close fight, but the judges got it right, but Gaethje at the end was definitely going to be the guy that, if that went another 10 minutes, Gaethje was winning that fight.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. That's interesting. That's actually, yeah, that's actually a really good idea, I think. Like, why not make takedowns points? Yes. Like how they do in wrestling.

Right. And then why not make it almost the same as collegiate wrestling, where if you get up, that's a point too. Right. Cap kicks are a point. This is a point. And all of it gets tallied up. And so that thing significant strikes,

which is kind of interesting, but sometimes significant strikes are body punches when you're on the ground, which we both know are not as significant as like a front kick to the gut when you're standing up. It's got more power to it. So what is significant strikes? Maybe significant kicks versus significant punches maybe some kicks are worth more like a head kick

is worth more you know a calf kick when you see damage when you see someone limp that's worth more like how many points is that worth yeah i agree i agree with you um yeah i almost feel like that's i mean it's probably the same process that there the same thought process that Taekwondo went through when they were, like, creating the rules for their sport too, right? Like, I could see how potentially there would be maybe some issues with, like, you know, like, people just touching, you know? Yeah. But even then, like, I mean, you can't ever really tell how hard someone's hitting, ever.

You know, like, even a guy like Perea, I was watching some of his like highlights and stuff earlier this week the way he punches people it doesn't like they come from here and they don't like they don't like look like this but when he hits someone bro their head snaps back yeah like uh it's definitely so you can never really tell i guess how hard it's those types of things you can't it would be super hard to like judge from a subjective point but i definitely agree with you that there needs to be like clear set like this is worth more than this this is worth more than this like if i get a takedown but i've been beating you up for a minute and you get a takedown on me

actually like what what's the balance there so that i don't have to fucking guess while i'm in the middle of like trying to like beat this guy up yeah i think a larger number i don't think 10 9 i don't think 10 9 makes any sense to me it's just too much room for interpretation too much room for subjectivity i think we should we should have some really large number that's that seems it's just such a different sport than boxing 10-9 makes sense in boxing 1080 got a knockdown makes sense it does not make sense in mma that's like you'll see guys get knocked down and win the round yeah you know it's like well how hurt was he on that knockdown and what should that count for you know we don't count knockdowns in the same way that boxing counts knockdowns.

If you're watching Caleb Plant and Benavidez, if Benavidez knocks Caleb Plant down, you know that's a 10-8 round. Everybody knows, oh, he's got a 10-8 round, he won that round. That is not the case in MMA where there's a clear-cut thing that you could point to and say, there's so many fights that are so goddamn close. Like, Sugar Sean and Piotr Jan.

Perfect example. Like, Jesus Christ, that was a close fight. Yeah. Why? And you got to, like, really look at it to try to figure out who won. I think they got it right, but when I first saw it, I thought they got it wrong. Because I first saw it, and Piotr was on top at the end of it. I was like, I think he got it.

I'm like, oh, wow, he won. But I was eating. I was backstage at a green room after a comedy show, hanging out with friends. But watching it alone, I was like, okay, that is a complex fight where it's close, but I think they got it right. I do too. I think there should be a complete overhaul of the scoring system. And I think they should have some sort of a conference where they get together with

experts and world-class referees and judges and trainers and fighters, and everybody has input. Do it like that UFC fighter week thing that they do in July, and have a fucking conference where they literally sit down and try to remap the way we score fights. Because there's no reason to keep scoring them this way. No one's holding a gun to our head. No one's making this 10-9 thing. We just adopted it because when we wanted to be sanctioned

in the initial part of it, you had to get through the athletic commission, Nevada State Athletic Commission being the best, and all these other ones being secondary. But they had a system that was already in place, so we took that system from boxing and we applied it to mma i agree with you yeah they i mean they gotta do something dude or else it's just it's literally gonna happen like every single month yeah and people are gonna be upset about it and it's gonna be a topic of conversation until it gets fixed yeah there's

been so many fights recently the angela lee macy barber fight there's been a bunch of these fights where you just you watch it after you're like what what the fuck did they watch i watched that fight in the back a little bit yeah uh because that was the same night that i fought cheeto and i remember in my head i was like oh well you better fucking win this fight by a margin you know i know yeah yeah it was crazy i know that decision was nuts like i couldn't i i just couldn't understand it. There's a lot of those lately. And I don't know what the fuck is going on. I don't know what the fuck is going on either. I mean, I hate to keep bringing this up, but the fucking Cheeto.

Cheeto getting one judge calling that fight over you. How? How? Yeah. How? I think I might have an idea. So I. So that guy was judging or reffing a fight of my guys along like maybe like four years ago. My guy was in a my guy was in a rear naked choke, but it wasn't like sunken in. His angle was right. So it was like, you know, it wasn't like sunken in his angle was right so it was like you know it wasn't in we're yelling at the guy like hey don't stop it don't stop it don't stop it uh the guy stops it

and then you know like i'm like hey man like you really screwed that one up and like maybe i didn't say it that nice but that same ref was the judge that scored it for cheeto so i don't think he like liked me that much maybe that's all speculation of course but well that makes a lot of sense might make some sense that's the only thing that makes sense and i don't really mean to throw that guy under the bus because i actually only really realized this like a few days ago when when i looked up what the guy looked like i was like oh that's the that's the guy that I kind of bitched out for like fucking up four years ago, you know? And it definitely wasn't like the best interaction with that guy, you know?

But I don't want to shit on the guy because the guy's already getting so much heat as it is. Well, he should get heat for that. Might have something to do with it. That might have something to do with it. And that's the unfortunate aspect of subjectivity, of people having their own opinions about things and going into a fight, judging a fight in a biased way. Yeah. Yeah, it's not good.

I also think, you know, there's a, have you seen Verdict? Verdict MMA? It's an app and people score from home. Oh, I have seen that. Yeah. I'm not sure how it works, but they seem to get it right most of the time. That would be funny if we just had the fans vote.

It'd be like some gladiator shit. I'm not saying we should, but that would be kind of funny. Problem is when Connor fights, the fucking Irish people would hack the servers. Yeah, totally. It would just be about whose country has the most population. Yes, and who's the most popular person.

Because if you have casuals that don't really truly understand what's going on, they're judging it. I don't know if that's the best idea. But maybe if you have someone who's verified, like you've got these guys that are either former fighters or hardcore fans, practitioners, people who really understand martial arts, trainers. And maybe you get verified, just like you get verified on Twitter for being Corey Sanhagen. Maybe you get verified as being a verified judge. And so you can participate. Yeah. Some people would love that.

It's not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah. At least we should have a secondary score that doesn't count. Like we could say, how do the people at home feel? How do the verified, you know, either athletes or trainers, or how do these people who we say, this guy understands MMA and he gets to vote and there's like 5,000 of them.

What do they think? Yeah. And then you look at like 99% think Corey won. Yeah. I mean, that's statistics, right? Like the larger population size that you have, the more right you're going to make it. Yeah. I mean, that's statistics, right? Like the larger population size that you have,

the more right you're going to make it. Right. Which is why you would never do like a drug test on three people. You know, they don't do pharmaceutical tests on three people. So that's why when you have judges where there's three people

judging a very important fight that easily could be for the number one contender position. How the fuck is that? How's that okay? That's not smart. It's not like judges are so fucking expensive but we can't afford five of them or six of them like glory has five do they yeah yeah is glory still around glory still around oh yeah they mean they they're not around the united states unfortunately you know when they

were doing like that um that fucking big tournament in la and you know they have they were doing that fucking big tournament in L.A. and they were on television in the U.S., I really had high hopes that they were going to. I did too. I was really hoping that they would do well because K1 in the 90s and the 2000s was the most fucking awesome thing in the entire world. The most fucking awesome thing. It was the most awesome thing.

I talk to some people now, now that I'm 30 and a little bit older, some people don't know what it is and i'm like look that up on youtube and watch every single k1 fight ever it's the most awesome thing in the world just show them an ernesto who's highlight reel seriously andy sour oh my god yeah andy hug i mean there's so many guys fucking peter urtz. Dude. Jerome Labanner. I mean, they had some... Remy Bonjasky. They had some fucking fights, man. Dude.

You know what fight I was thinking of the other day? Chahid vs. Zambidas. Remember that fight? Oh, yes. Dude, that fight has just disappeared in history, but that was one of the most awesome, epic fights that's ever happened in history sam peters was a fucking animal yeah he was awesome he was awesome what was he australian

i think so right he was greek was he from australia yeah yeah yeah you might be right there it is dude this is the most oh man yeah he's greek This fight was fucking bananas. This fight was awesome. These guys got in each other's face from the moment the fight started. I mean, they just fucking went to war. Look at this. I'm so glad that I got to bring this up for people where they'll like, you know, watch this shit. Because this is the most awesome fight in the entire world. The most awesome fight. Yeah.

If I was running the UFC, and clearly I'm not, but if I was, I would not be interested in slap fighting. I'd be interested in this. Yeah. This is what I would say. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. If you guys want to do something else that's going to be big, how about have pro kickboxing? Yep. Because everybody loves high-level kickboxing.

Do it in the small gloves like one. Right. Or you could do it in these gloves. But, yeah, small gloves is fine. These gloves are way better than the Glory ones, too. The Glory ones look bulky, and like guard the face too much these these look like these are like uh so duane let me put a pair of these on um are these tens or eights dude they might be eights but but dude it's your it like literally just covers what it needs to cover

they're they're essentially they feel like mma gloves except without the fingers eight's the I think eight's the right number. Eight's the right number. It's so crazy that heavyweights are using fours in MMA, right? But eight ounces? Yeah, that is crazy. That seems like the right number, specifically for these guys, but there's a lot of these guys out there in the world. Like Cedric Dumbé just got signed for UFC. Oh yeah, I saw that. That's cool. Yeah, they almost had him signed a while back, which is it sucks because he lost like two years of his prime where, you know, for some reason it didn't work out and he didn't get in. But now, finally, that guy is in MMA, and you're going to get to see just elite, world-class striking. That's awesome.

And fucking conditioning. That guy came to my gym. He did my podcast, and he came to my gym in LA, and they wanted to use the gym. And so, after the podcast session, he did a training session, so I got to watch the whole thing. They do some wild strength and conditioning shit. Oh, really?

So much strength and conditioning. It's all sprints on the treadmill, that self-powering treadmill, and then run back over to the bag, and it's, da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da, and it's time, go, and then he's doing another thing, he's doing plyos, doing all these different things, but that's why that guy's got this insane gas tank. When you watch Cedric do a bay fight,

one of the things he does, he melts people. He just keeps that, he's got crazy power, super intelligent, very creative inside there, but also just melts people with that pace. He's been around for a while too, right? He has. Okay, yeah, because I was going to say, I haven't seen much of his fights recently,

but I know that he's been around for a while. He's a comedian. Like a legit comedian? He's a comedian in France. Oh, really? Yeah, he's a funny dude, man. Oh, that's cool. Cedric Dumbay shoots down reports of UFC deal.

Oh, no. The rumors of Cedric Dumbay signing to the UFC cropped up after the fighter shared a cryptic post on social media. Because I know he was about to be signed at one point. So what the fuck? It hasn't happened yet officially is all. Oh, so he got a call from Dana White and he sent a picture of it. Yeah, here's his last tweet about it. He said this.

He said, I know you want to see me at the UFC. I really want to make you love, but the choice offered me is really not easy. And at 30, it will be the last choice of my life. Look how he spelled choice. It's French.

That's French. Is he spelling it in French? That's what it is. Chois. This is my choi. Well, fuck, man. I hope they figure that out. Because when you get guys like Pejeta or get guys like Cedric Dumbé, you get to see elite striking.

Yeah. And it's also you get to see this problem. Like with Pejeta, you saw it with the Adesanya fight. Doesn't really know what to do and guys are wrestling him. And that was a big problem when Izzy got his back and he couldn't get out of that. It's like, wow, he was very sluggish on the ground this is like a market difference between the fluidity and the efficiency that he has on his feet and then when adesanya got him on the ground you can say like whoa because he's gonna have a problem with like the robert whittaker's of the world or the marvin vittori's

he's big fucks that know how to wrestle yeah there's i i think grappling is super interesting or at least from like uh the way that i've kind of learned things and wrestling is because it's so proprioceptive that like you literally I don't feel I can get good at it until you clock all of those hours. Like that's like a really cool thing about I mean, everything comes more natural to people, of course, like striking came really natural to me, but I had I started everything at the same time uh jiu-jitsu was so proprioceptive that it like it wasn't natural for me like i grew up playing basketball like everything is hand-eyed coordination you know moving your body uh but like wrestling and grappling it's like uh it's almost like when you you learn a different language and you always have that accent you know what i mean where it's like oh that that guy didn't grow up doing that you know because i can see by the way that he just does like really small nuancy things and you can't get rid of it unless you just like clock hours and hours and hours of it like i feel like striking's that way too though yeah i think for some people

and that's why i said maybe it's because just the way like i just naturally picked up striking really easy too but uh for bulky guys for bulky guys, striking becomes a real problem. Yeah, because moving is a big deal. And it's also like guys who are used to grappling, they're used to moving their body in a very specific way. And then all of a sudden they got a snap, an explosion. It's like a different thing. And a lot of them, like the big bulky guys, have a really hard time picking up fluid striking yeah definitely definitely but if you like you see a guy like floyd mayweather or something started when he was

a little kid my my god it's like a part of his it's like blinking it's just like completely natural movement yeah yeah i mean uh yeah because when i think about how i've because i do think i've made some giant leaps in my wrestling game recently. The reason I think it's happened is because Banks and I will just like hand fight and pummel for like 20, 30 minutes straight on a lot of days. Like Wednesdays and Saturdays. We'll just do that because I really feel like I don't understand things until I can actually just like clock them hours and hours and hours. Because it can be the difference of, Oh, my shoulders here or my shoulders here, like on someone's chest that like stops them from running me over. And like those things you just don't learn unless you

just like clock the hours and hours and hours. Another thing that makes like MMA just so awesome and fascinating too, is just, there's things that you just can't skit without just clocking hours and hours and hours. There's no shortcuts. No, no. Especially at the elite level. It's like you can't because everyone's talented. Everyone's motivated. Everyone's driven. Everyone's successful. Everyone has experience. Yeah. It's just like, what a pressure cooker. Seriously. It's good though, man. Because like, like I said, like I don't really have any other hobbies like i don't enjoy doing other things so like i'm like super capable of just like clocking hours and hours and hours because i don't like do other shit in life that's good that you don't do other shit because you wouldn't have time for it yeah it's it's really it's the

question with a lot of elite athletes in m is like, how long can you maintain that intensity? Yeah. Because it is a grind. It's a grind. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm in a nice place, though, because I kind of after that Jan fight, I took a year, got better, was able to rest like my nervous system. You know, like when you're like wanting to fight over and over and over again, I feel like your nervous system never really gets to chill because it's like, all right.

It's like thinking a couple months ahead, you know? Yeah. But my nervous system feels good right now. Like it's excited to think a couple months ahead now. That's great. Yeah. So the yawn fight you took on short notice, like how much time did you have? Five weeks. Five weeks. So halftime of what you prefer. And what did you get out of that fight? Uh, I was super happy with the way that i did those five weeks i was really happy about that um that was the first time that i had actually gotten rocked to the point where like my like body wasn't listening to me uh so that was super interesting um what did you get hit with uh fucking like a spinning back fist left hook it's a pretty it was a pretty badass

attack but it happened in the last minute in the third round and i feel like i was fighting fucking awesome round one round two four minutes into round three got rocked stood up was like okay went back to the corner i don't really remember what happened in between the corner because i was so like oh shit like i just got rocked and for the first time ever in the fourth round, my eyes weren't, my legs weren't listening to what my eyes were seeing. So like I felt like I would see punches coming and my body just wouldn't get the fuck out of the way, which was crazy. So I got my ass whooped in the fourth.

And then when I went uh after the fourth before the fifth i remember taking this like deep breath and being like oh okay like now i'm back to being myself but then in the fifth i kind of had to fight like a little bit compromised because i was like well fuck if i get hit like that again that could be like lights out you know um but that actually helped me a lot in the song fight. Cause in the song fight, I got rocked pretty early too. Um, like just got like really excited, like wanted to like crack them with the right hand when I saw an opening and that motherfucker song is fast, dude. Like, uh, I had never fought someone that I think was that

athletic and that fast in my life. So I threw a right hand and Song like fucking chambered his shoulder and threw like a hard left hook as I was turning back in and it rocked me and it didn't phase me anymore because I had been through it in the yawn fight so uh even though the yawn fight I of course was upset because I lost like I took that away from it and I feel like it actually helped me win against Song big time because after I got rocked, I was like, eh, I know that I'm okay. Which is like when it happens to you the first time, you're like, oh, fuck me. I'm like, am I going to get knocked out now?

Right, right, right. So it helped. But yeah, I was more or less happy with how I did. Just got dropped, was compromised. I'll get at him again. The Song fight was amazing because I got to watch that as a spectator. Cool. how i did just got dropped was compromised i'll get it i'll get at him again you know the song fight was amazing because i got to watch that as a spectator cool at the apex cool which i love i love fights at the apex i think it's amazing i hate them well you don't hear the crowd yeah i

would imagine for an elite fighter when you're fighting a big opponent like song yudong it's a very important fight that you would want a giant roaring crowd and you want it to be at the t-mobile but man as a fan to be able to especially where i get to sit like at the desk nice so i'm sitting there right there watching the cage and i don't have to work so i'm just listening and watching and and fuck man what a what a great experience it is watching world-class fights in that environment where you can hear everything. Because there was only like 100 people there, like maybe, right?

It's like only people that get invited. So you're sitting there and watching world-class fights almost like it's in a gym. Yeah. Song's awesome too, man. Like I really feel like that guy, I mean, he lost to me, but that guy kind of gets slept on a little bit man like uh this is what we were talking about earlier there's so many people in that division i'm actually really curious to see how him and

ricky simone how that fight goes yeah that's gonna be a killer fight that's a great it's gonna be a killer fight very exciting fight yeah i'm really excited about, excited about Al Jermaine and Henry. Yeah, that's super exciting too. I know. At first, you know, like, okay, so at first,

just being in the division and just like the lens that I have to like walk through life, I was like, man, fucking Henry's just coming back, you know,

like, motherfuckers getting title shot, you know, but then, now I'm kind of like, oh shit, this is going to be like a cool fight, you know,

like it's gonna be exciting yeah it's it sucks in one way because this guy sort of takes your place or takes a place but on another way it's like he brings a lot of eyeballs to the division to the division and also he elevates everything yeah like that's the reality of a henry sahudo that guy is a fucking wolverine yeah i mean he really is he's good too he's very like like he's kind of d a henry sahudo that guy is a fucking wolverine yeah i mean he really is he's good too he's very like like he's kind of dorky on like and i know that he tries to be dorky the cringe stuff yeah yeah but dude when you watch that guy compete like i remember when i watched him fight fight cruise uh like i always try to like get a read on people uh like what

their body language is saying how their their eyes look, you know? Like I feel like guys that do a lot of like shifty-eyed stuff before a fight aren't always the most focused. That might just be something that I think, there's no science behind that, but I almost feel like I can like tell. But when I watch Suhudo fight, I'm like, oh man, that guy's locked in, man.

Like that guy is locked in. He's a hell of a competitor. Yeah, elite competitor competitor won a gold medal at like 18 yeah gold medal in the olympics two division world champ at mma i mean he's a fucking monster and you know i think one of his most impressive performances is marlon marais yeah because marlon had him fucked up in that first round marlon was t marlon is probably one of the most talented guys that just can't be pushed past a certain level. When he gets pushed to a certain level,

the wheels fall off. And it's very interesting. I don't know if it's psychological. I don't know if it's because he cuts so much weight. If it's physical, if he doesn't have a large gas tank. I don't know what it is. But if I watch that first round,

I'm like, oh my God, this guy's a world beater. Like Jesus Christ, Marlon Marais is fucking Henry Cejudo up. But if I watch that first round, I'm like, oh, my God, this guy's a world beater. Like, Jesus Christ, Marlon Moraes is fucking Henry Cejudo up. Yeah. And then the second round, Henry made an adjustment, just started putting it on him. Yeah, he did what he had to do. He was like, all right, this shit ain't working. We're going after this guy.

That was cool. Yeah, Henry's a hell of a competitor. You know who else is, too, though? Sterling, bro. Oh, yeah. Sterling gets slept on as, like, the champ. And he's a hell of a competitor. champ and he's a hell of a competitor yeah he's a hell of a competitor well you saw that in the second pewter yawn fight because i

think pewter yawn felt like i'm gonna fuck this guy up he cheated you know he won the first fight by pretending he was hurt which i don't think he was pretending at all and but meanwhile the guy gets an artificial disc put in his neck how do to have neck surgery because his neck was fucked. So that knee 100% fucked him up. And then on top of that, he has to get this surgery where they're putting a titanium articulating disc in his neck. And then he goes and fights again

and then dominates. That's a big deal. Big deal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Aljamain doesn't really, he doesn't seem like a super boastful guy for himself. I always kind of see him when I watch those things that I watch on Aljamain doesn't seem like a super boastful guy for himself. I always kind of see him when I watch those things that I watch on Aljamain.

He's being silly and calling fights and all of this stuff. He's not a super boastful guy on his own, but he could be if he wanted to because he's a very good fighter. And the neck surgery, that's a big deal, man, coming back from something like that. It's a very big deal. It's amazing that we have that kind of technology today that they can replace discs in someone's neck to the point where they can fight in a world class and a world championship title fight it's pretty crazy what did you get out of your fight with him uh sterling yeah uh not to fight like a pussy don't don't go in there like a pussy uh no um i just wasn't i i was kind of i don't know man i i just like uh i went into that fight all wrong

like uh i was just like way too calm way too like i got this like just being a douche you know like a freaking like i you know like if if one of my fighters was being like that i'd be like hey man you were kind of a douche you know like you thought that you were just gonna walk through that guy like you didn't get up at all like you know and and part of it wasn't because i thought that i was like so much better than aljamain i think part of it was just probably just like a compensation inside me that was like somehow afraid to lose so i was just trying to be like some type of character or whatever you know but but long story short i wasn't up enough at all and aljamain was up here and i was like here and here is not where you want

to be for a fight so uh it just made for like i remember being in that fight and being like is this fucking guy on my back right now you know know, like I was like, how the hell did he get there? Like, this isn't how this is supposed to be going. Just like dumb shit like that. Like adolescent competitor type shit. Uh, and that's actually after that fight, that's when I was like, I'm getting this shit down now. Like I'm figuring out how to show up every single night. So you think that's a part of the important, one of the important things that happens in the process of becoming a great fighter is that you have to make those mistakes in order to learn and feel the pain of that to know that you have to make some adjustments and you have to make some changes.

I think from my personal experience, I always try to catch mistakes before they actually become problems. But in my experience in life the things that i've really fixed haven't been until after i've like cracked you know or like had something horrible happen yeah like uh when that happens in life i feel like you just take things way way more serious because it's it becomes a reality when like if you kind of know something's like uh that's a problem but i don't really have to worry about that problem right now because it's not in my face but you're always kind of like

that might be a problem one day and then it actually becomes a problem then you fix that shit you know like uh actually after that fight um i'll spend a like a lot of time just you know in my car whenever just thinking to myself i'd be like is there anything that i'm doing right now that i will hate myself for if i lose this next fight and like what do i need to fix so that that shit doesn't happen you know and i'm like constantly always asking myself those types of questions where i'm just like look man if like say you lost tomorrow would you change anything right now and like i asked myself that like a lot a lot you said something the last time we were on the podcast that i actually put up a clip of the other day because it was it's it's such a profound thing you said you said i wish

i could win every fight and feel like I lost. Yeah. Yeah, what a... I mean, maybe not, because now that I'm on the winning side of shit, it feels pretty good. So maybe I don't mean that, but... As far... But it is, like, the better way to, like, become great, you know? It's a better way to become great.

Like, even, like, I was wrestling with Banks the other day before we came out here and i was like hey like i'm fucking this up this up this up this up like i need to get better at this this like these are the next steps but uh you know so uh i i have really embraced that i'm glad that i don't actually have to feel like a loser because that shit really really sucks but uh yeah i uh this shit is a marathon man like it's a marathon it's an ultra marathon it's an ultra marathon and it's gonna last for hopefully the next six seven years of my life so how old you now 30 so 37 you think is the exit strategy yeah that seems like for a natural athlete that that's the tail end of your efficiency, your body's ability to perform at the highest levels.

I don't want to have my wife and kids watch me get knocked out a bunch of times. I don't want to go out like that. I mentioned Chris Gutierrez, but that last Frankie fight, when Chris knocked out Frankie, I was very apprehensive about that fight because I knew that Frankie had had hip replacement surgery. He's been around for so long. about that fight because i knew that frankie had hip replacement surgery and i you know i mean he's been around for so long i mean he beat bj penn for the title in abu dhabi in like what was that 2006 or something yeah when was that it was a long time ago it was when anderson silva fought damian maya

and dang that was a long time ago and then you know you think about those wars that he had with gray maynard and all the fights that frankie's been in and to see his kids in the audience for that fight i'm like oh god they're gonna come see this fight dude and goody aires is he's nasty he's so good so he is really slick bro when they took that fight i was like why why you know like not not to be offensive towards anyone but but I was like, Chris is good, man. He's very good. Chris is really good. And he doesn't get the attention he deserves because he's in this fucking insane division.

You know, I mean, there's so many guys, so many fucking guys in this division. It's just a, what a wild ass 135 pound division. It's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. It's exciting. Fuck, it's exciting. Yeah, it is crazy. It's exciting. Fuck, it's exciting. Yeah, it's fucking cool. And it's so interesting to me that, you know,

other than Brandon Moreno and Davidson Figueiredo and, you know, there's a few guys at 125 that people care about. That division doesn't get nothing compared to the 135. 135-pound division sells out at T-Bulble Arena. You know, it's fucking huge pay-per-view fight. 125. People are like, that's too small.

Yeah. Weird. Yeah, it is weird. Hmm. Yeah, Moreno's a badass, too. I love Moreno. I love that, too. Yeah, yeah.

I love that he's into Legos. I love that shit, dude. Is he? Dude, yeah. And then, yeah, what was it? Perea was wearing, like, some Pokemon jean jacket or something. Perea was? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He then, yeah, what was it? Perea was wearing some Pokemon jean jacket or something. Perea was? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He can wear whatever the fuck he wants. Yeah, for real, dude. So I shook that guy's hand. So actually, I have a lot of respect for that, dude. I'll give him like a... So after he had won the belt, the next week his sister was fighting in the middle of nowhere, Iowa. And I was there cornering one of my buddies or one of my teammates and he he was there like helping his sister and i was like oh man that's

really that's like cool to me you know like you just want a world title against one of like the best champions that the ufc has had in years and then you're like in the middle of like dude in the middle of nowhere iowa it was like an hour 30 just to the airport like yeah yeah so but anyways dude I shook that guy's hand and it was like shaking like one of these things man it was like his hand was like this big I was like yeah he's a genetic freak yeah there's a lot going on with that guy he's incredibly mentally tough he's he's got insanity in those the power punches and strikes. You watch him hit guys, and you can tell right away.

They're like, oh, fuck. You can see it. He puts it on them, and they're like, oh, Jesus Christ. The danger is so high. He's got that one-punch KO power, one-strike KO power, and he's so intelligent about how to place it on a chin. He really knows how to hit people there. And then on top of that, he's fucking enormous.

Yeah, he's big. You can't believe that guy weighs 185 pounds. You know, I walk around, I'm probably like 200 pounds. How the fuck is that guy 15 pounds lighter than me? He's so much bigger than me. He's huge. And then you see him get into the cage. He's like 225 when he when he fights

when he rehydrates which is just bananas seriously i uh so like i was actually watching izzy and perea the the first fight recently and uh he has his hands in a spot too where he's almost like like hit me yeah like come on hit me he's almost baiting you yeah because he you know like that size of a guy fighting a guy like Israel that that to me is where I like really understand why that fight went the way that it went a little bit is because when someone that big compared to you is standing there kind of like this and just like marching you down with their hands down it's a little bit intimidating to just be like well do I just like nail this guy you know because if he slips and I like don't hit him,

he's going to like chuck and fuck me up. So I think that that's a little bit of like a giant advantage for that dude. It's also he's got a very unusual stance. He stands straight up and he keeps his hands like this and he just sort of like straight. And then he throws kicks with no telegraph, and he doesn't throw in full power. But he's got so much power that when he starts throwing those low kicks,

like I watched the first fight a few times now, the first MMA fight, and he fucked Izzy's calf up multiple times in that first round with zero telegraph. So it's not like one of those like like, dig in and turn your body over. It's just tap, tap. He's just tap, just throw it, and it doesn't come out of anywhere. You're not seeing any reads. Yeah, yeah, those are the toughest guys to fight, honestly,

the guys that don't telegraph anything. Yeah. You know, you're plenty powerful just having all that adrenaline in you. You don't need to be loading up too much. That said, if you go back and watch the first fight, Izzy was winning that fight. Izzy was winning the grappling exchanges he took him down controlled him on the ground and he was doing great in the striking rocked him in the first round had him in real trouble that first round is 30 seconds longer izzy retains his title so it's one of those things just like i this is not a mismatch and it's not like boy i feel sorry for izzy no it's like

whoa how is this gonna go down yeah how is this gonna go down and when you got a guy with a mind like izzy's where he's so fucking determined so smart and so laser focused he thinks he's got the solution he thinks he's got it he's gonna figure out. And then you've got this other thing where when someone becomes a champion, there's this sort of school of thought that they almost immediately become 10 or 20% better. Yeah. I have heard that. I wonder why. I mean, yeah. When were they, they were saying that with Leon and Usman. Yeah. Huh. I wonder why. Well, he certainly, Leon certainly looked better in the second fight, but I feel like Kamaru looked a little apprehensive. I felt like in that fight, like maybe there was something going on.

So Izzy's the favorite. I mean, he was winning most of the fight. Interesting. Yeah, but he lost by TKO. I mean, that's very interesting. Very interesting. Look at the 7-1 versus 23 and two or something yeah crazy with mma it's um it's i mean it's a very close line that could change easily if uh more money

comes in on pajero you know 135 and 115 is almost like a pick-em fight you a big better no no i don't bet on anything now you can't bet when you work for the UFC. Yeah, yeah. But I was never really before. I hate losing money. First time I went to Las Vegas and I lost 20 bucks in like three minutes. I was like, fuck this. This is not for me. Well, that's good.

It's also something silly. You can't control it. I mean, I guess you can if you're really good at poker or blackjack or something like that. But it's just like, I'm not interested in that. No? Do you play those games? No. No?

I don't play any of that stuff. I don't play anything where you don't have to execute. I know, dude. I don't like games where I can't use my body in some way. Yeah. That's why I like pool. Because in pool, it's like strategy. There's all this thinking involved.

But you have to make the shot. You have to execute under pressure. That's exciting to me. Like picking a card? Yeah, yeah. Anybody can do it. You can be dead. to execute under pressure. That's exciting to me. Like, picking a card? Yeah, yeah. Like, anybody can do that. You can be dead. You can play poker.

That's true. You know, it's like, it's just, you can play digital poker. Yeah. Like, video poker. Dude, the people that sit at the things and hit the button all day. Oh, my God. What are you doing? Oh, my God.

What are you doing? I know that poker's a very intelligent game, and I respect it and appreciate it. And the guys who win all the time, they're're elite thinkers for sure I mean and they're obsessed people because I'm too physical I like I like things that you do with your body yeah me too I'm the same because it's it's also mental because you have to control the body like controlling the body is like one of the most exciting things about competition is that you know that there's a lot of pressure but you have to perform while you're under pressure. You ever play spike ball? No. Do you know what it is? No. It's like that little black and gold game. It's like a little net that they put on the ground and it's like a park game.

You hit the ball at the net and then it's two versus two. You never seen that? No. Oh, that's our game, dude. That's going to be my second career. Really? Oh, dude, I love spike ball, bro. That's our game, dude. That's going to be my second career. Really? Oh, dude, I love spike ball, bro. We play on the team. We'll get a bunch of the guys on Saturdays in the summertime.

It's this game. So it's pretty much like volleyball. It's like two versus two, but it's a 360-degree game. And it's like volleyball, but instead of hitting it over the net, you hit it at the net. But, dude, it is so, like, look at, like, you just dive around, you, like, pass the ball back, you get three hits, you hit the board. Oh, that's wild. Dude, this game is

so fun. That does look fun. It's super fun. Yeah, that's my, that's like gonna be my second career. How am I never hearing of this until now? Is this, have you heard of this, Jamie? This is 2016? It's pretty new, though. It's a little new. It's like picking up some steam. Oh, this would be a good game

for the beach. Look at this. This is crazy. It's been on ESPN and whatnot. Oh, wow. It's so fun. That looks fun. It's super fun. That's gonna be your next thing? I think so. You gotta preserve your knees if you wanna play that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of cutting and jumping and moving around. Yeah,

we play. Unfortunately, no one's really good enough to keep up anymore. I know the guys are going to hate that I say that. Really? You getting really good at it? Yeah, I think I'm going to join a team and shit. I honestly think I'm going to join a summer league. Is that your shit?

It is my shit, dude. Wow. I love it. Wow. I don't have any other hobbies. I'm thinking about starting fishing just because I like doing shit outside. You live in Colorado. A lot of great fishing. Yeah, I just don't have any other hobbies. I'm thinking about starting fishing just because I like doing shit outside. You live in Colorado.

A lot of great fishing. Yeah. I just don't know if it's going to be my thing or not. It's fun. Fucking stand there. Yeah. I don't know if it's my thing. But spike ball is my thing.

You should try bow hunting. Really? Fuck yeah. My old roommate is super into bow hunting. Dude, I've done a lot of shit. Bow hunting, like bow hunting a screaming elk. That is one of the wildest things Really? It's so exciting

What do you mean screaming elk? They scream Like when you hit them? No No, they're mating And so they're screaming at each other and fighting Oh shit So you're dealing with these 900 pound animals

With giant antlers Smashing into each other And you're creeping up on them You know, you're trying to like avoid the wind And it's very physically taxing because you're in the mountains. So you have to get up to the top of the hills where these guys are, and you have to be able to— That's what they sound like. Where do you do that? I do it all of the western states.

Utah is one of my favorite places to go. I love going there. I go to California. I hunt in California and central California every year. I like to go to Colorado. I'm going to try to get to Arizona either this year or next year. They got elk in Arizona? Oh, yeah.

Really? Where do they live? Well, a lot of them they have in these Apache reservations down there. Oh, cool. And you buy a tag from the reservation. And they're fucking enormous. It's the most exciting thing. Like Derek Wolf, who won the Super Bowl, competed in the NFL,

he said, sacking Tom Brady's great, but it's not as fun as elk hunting. Oh, cool. Which is crazy. Shooting an elk with your bow, he said, is more exciting than sacking Tom Brady. And then you got to go find it, right? Well, hopefully you don't have to fight it. No. Oh, okay.

Generally with a good shot, it's not going very far. Okay. It's really just about practice, and it's really just about, you know, bow hunting is one of those things where you look at it, you're like, oh, you just shoot an arrow at the animal. And then once you start doing it, you're like, oh, there's so many layers to this thing. And there's also layers to execution in archery, which requires constant practice. Archery is something that's a completely perishable skill. If I take like a few weeks off of archery and then I go back,'m like oh it's all it all feels weird but then if I'm

practicing every day I kind of know where that arrow is going when I release that arrow I just watch it there's something about shooting an 80 yard shot and watching it go right into the center of the target it's amazing yeah I don't even know if I could see that far. You can. 80 yards? But doing it on an animal like that, it's next level. I mean, I wouldn't shoot 80 yards, but you shoot long. I mean, I shot 70 yards. I've shot an elk at 70 yards. But I only did it because I fucking practice every day for hours and hours, and I'm 100% confident in the shot.

But it's a mind fuck it's it's exciting it's primal and the meat is sensational and you know you have fucking a year's worth of meat from one animal yeah yeah i'm definitely gonna get into that at some point that's fine maybe just once so i don't want to fucking practice you would like archery okay. It's one of those things where while you are pulling that bow back and centering the bubble and centering your peep sight and putting that dot on the target and you're drawing back, there's nothing else in your mind. Cool. You have no room for anything else.

It's all about all the different physical things that have to be in play. Your elbow has to be high. You're pulling with your back muscles you're relaxing your shoulder releasing like the grip has to be light but yet you're still stabilizing the bow so it's just like this dance of muscle and thought and then with perfect execution when you watch that arrow strike the target it's so satisfying dude wouldn't it be cool to be like a Mongolian warrior doing that like by horseback? Isn't that how they used to like mess up

all of the other, yeah, they used, because that was like their like top weapon. They would just like send out fleets of people with horses and just,

that'd be cool. They did so many things that were horrific. They were incredible. Dude, old school war was, old school isn't the right term for it,

but like. Yeah, old school war. Old school war was bad. Mongol war. If you could watch, I mean, watching the Mongols sack a city and kill a million people and stack their bodies on top of each other. Did you ever read, well, read, there's a great audio book series. It's really a podcast, but it really is more like an audio book.

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Yep, I love his podcast. Did you ever hear Wrath of the Khans? No. It's the best one. Oh, really? it's the best one oh really okay i'll listen it's all about jengis khan and his family oh what they did dude they killed 10 of the population of earth while he was alive they killed so many people that they affected the carbon footprint of human beings on earth when they do core samples of the Earth, there's like a considerable decrease in the carbon layer on Earth when Genghis Khan was alive

because they killed so many people. Why would he do that? He was a bad man. What an asshole. Very bad man. Very bad man. And, you know, he fucked so many women and raped so many women

that his genes are in a high percentage of the people that still exist there today it's something nuts right what was the we've googled this before was what is the number it's something crazy jamie will find it but when he was alive they killed somewhere between 50 and 60 million people jeez yeah like 10 of the world's population yeah like one out of 10 people on earth was killed by the Mongols. That's going to take me a minute to digest. So a 2003 study found evidence that Genghis Khan's DNA is present in about 16 million men alive today. The Mongolian ruler's genetic prowess has stood, that's a nice way of saying he raped a lot of people, His genetic prowess has stood as an unparalleled accomplishment.

But he isn't the only man whose reproductive activities are still so significant genetic impact centuries later. Yeah. And what's crazy is that that was like one of the superpowers of the world that everyone was terrified of, the Mongol Empire. And now, nothing. Yeah. Like no one's scared of the Mongols.

Yeah. I mean, obviously they're scared of Mongol fighters and they're tough people. But there's no considerable army. Yeah. Which is, obviously, they're scared of Mongol fighters, and they're tough people, but there's no, like, considerable army. Yeah. Which is really crazy if you think about that. It is. A thousand years ago, if you went back and talked to them, they're like, we're going to be running this shit forever. Yeah.

Dude, I used to, back when I was, like, trying to get into Warmind, I would just, like, Google, like, the most badass warriors in time. Yeah. And I'm an idiot, so I, like, forget everything after a month of learning something. in time yeah and uh i'm an idiot so i like forget everything after a month of learning something but uh one of the one of the warriors was this aztec dude and they he got captured by the other team whatever whoever it was they took him they cut off his hands to like try to like uh just make him miserable for his entire life they sent him back to his camp this guy like glues on knives onto his hands and then just commits the rest of his life to just like killing all of these people that like did that and that to me jesus christ yeah this

might be him all day jesus christ according to legend after his right hand was cut off by the spanish galvarino boldly held up his left hand offering up for his captives to amputate oh after his right hand was cut off he offered up his left hand to the captives to amputate. Oh, after his right hand was cut off, he offered up his left hand to the captives to amputate. He displayed no emotion as it was cut off, and his facial features recorded no pain. The Spaniards ordered him to return to, I can't say that word. How do I say that word?

Coplicon. Coplicon? To urge him to surrender. Wow. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that this dude glued on knives on his hands. And because that's the type of dude that I was trying to become sometimes. Where I'm like, yeah, my life is committed to like, you know.

Look at that. Yeah, like that. That is wild. Imagine being that guy, though. And just having that amount of hatred inside of you to be like, you know what? We're gluing these on and we're going back. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that'd be crazy.

I guess when you kind of, I sometimes think when you grow up in a society like that and there's not a lot going on, you probably get pretty bored and commit your life to weird stuff like that. Well, I bet he was committed to that the way you're committed to fighting. Yeah, probably. It's probably the same kind of thing. If you're going to be a warrior, you have to be all in and you got to know there's other warriors like you out there and you got to be better than them yeah

Or harder than them when I had Tyson on I brought up Genghis Khan and his fucking eyes lit up He knows so much about like Genghis Khan like first of all he knew his name was Temujin his real name was Temujin That's his born name, and he told a story about his brother about how his brother was Stealing fish from him and his other brother so he killed his brother and his mother freaked out that he killed his brother but he's he was a fucking killer from the womb like from the time he was young and went on to form this empire that to this day is one of the most frightening forces in the history of humanity like what they did there's a there was this guy who was uh the the the shah of charisma had sent an emissary to jin china to go to see whether or not they should invade or conquer them or what you know what was going on there and as they were headed to the city they saw in the

distance what they thought was a snow-covered mountain and as they got closer they realized that it was a stack of bones there was a stack of bodies everyone in the city had been murdered they had to abandon the roads along the way because they were so littered with human bodies that were decaying that the roads had become mud and caked with filth and just human decay it was like decaying people had destroyed the roads. Dang. There was so much decay that the roads had become mud. Dang, that's a pretty sad time

in history to probably be a part of. They would set up outside of cities, of walled cities and just camp out until people ran out of food. And then when they started killing people they would put them on a catapult, light them on fire and launch them onto the thatched roofs to start the buildings on fire yeah we don't have it too bad now i guess huh we have it pretty fucking yeah we got it pretty good pretty

fucking good yeah i think about it it's almost too good where i feel like the world's gonna end pretty soon well i think you probably are on to something historically because you know that's that old thing that people always say. Hard times create hard men. Hard men create easy times. Easy times create soft men. Soft men create hard times. We're at soft men create hard times. Yeah.

There's a Dune quote. I just got done reading Dune and it goes something along the lines of like men made machines to try to free themselves when really what happened is the men with machines just decided to enslave a bunch of people. Where it's kind of like we're almost like making ourselves slaves to these machines. Maybe even worse with AI. Oh, yeah. That's pretty scary, too. AI is like right about to pop. And people are just sitting back going, what's going on?

What's happening here? What is that? It's literally like the Enola Gay ready to drop a bomb on Hiroshima. It's really like, it's like right there. You think that'll be it, is AI? I worry. I mean, I don't know. What would be the best?

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Best case scenario? Yeah, best case scenario. Best case scenario is we incorporate it into our own biology. And then we become some sort of new type of being that's like a cyborg. Because if it's not that, then you're going to deal with an artificial intelligent life form that's so superior to us that it creates far superior versions of itself over and over again because it becomes autonomous

and sentient that means it can make decisions and do something it would go well my programming is dog shit let me just figure out how to do this better, quantum computing, and do it with better technology and nuclear fusion, figure out some way to have power that's not destroying the environment and figure out a way to have something that's completely sustainable and then go better and better than that. You know what I hope that they do? I hope that they can clone dinosaurs. So they're going to do that.

I hope that the AI thing, I hope that that's what it commits itself to. Well, they're already doing that with woolly mammoths. They're cloning them? Yes. Cool. There's a project that's going on right now where they're going to reintroduce mammoths, woolly mammoths, to Siberia. And the idea is that-

They're going to reintroduce them? Yeah. What? Yeah. Why? We'll see if we can find that, Jamie. I got to take a piss. We'll come back and we'll talk about that because it's pretty fascinating shit.

Woolly mammoths. Here we go. So scientists are reincarnating the woolly mammoth to return in four years. Interesting choice in words already. Reincarnating? What the hell? That's scary. That's not really what they're doing though, right?

But it's interesting too because 90 90 of all animals that have ever existed are dead they're extinct so it's like are we gonna just keep doing this and what kind of consequences is that going to have for the animals that are alive right now like what if they start reintroducing saber-toothed tigers what if they start reintroducing you know all these animals that at one point in time dominated the earth dude i wonder if a jurassic park will ever exist it fucking totally can exist oh man i hope it does i really hope it does i'll pay whatever that at one point in time dominated the Earth. Dude, I wonder if a Jurassic Park will ever exist. It fucking totally can exist. Oh, man, I hope it does.

I really hope it does. I'll pay whatever. Fuck yeah. I'll pay whatever they ask to see a velociraptor. Oh, my God. Any amount of money. We know how that ends. That ends bad.

Yeah. That ends with them killing all of us. Yeah, no one stopped to ask, should we do it? Yeah. That's one of my favorite lines from that movie. It ends bad in the movie. It ends bad in the movie. In real life, you have fucking jets just flying. You nuke these fucks.

You know? That crazy fucking raptor T-Rex. No one can stop that one. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what they called it. The Indominus Rex. But that's just like the silliness of two, three, four, five. You know, Jurassic 1 was the shit.

That was really what it was at. Like, what did you do? Yeah. You know, my favorite fucking part of the movie is Jeff Goldblum. Jurassic 1 was the shit. That was really what it was at. What did you do? My favorite fucking part of the movie is Jeff Goldblum when he first sees the Brontosaurus when he's in the Jeep and he just gets up and he looks at that and they're like, what the fuck did you do?

I think that's possible, man. I think they're probably going to do it eventually. They have to, right? It's a matter of time before that happens it's probably a matter of time before like we cure cancer and figure out how to live to 500 years like it's a matter of time before anything unless

we blow ourselves up unless we blow ourselves up which is also real possible or we get hit with an asteroid which is also real possible that's the big one that would suck that's the big one I've been obsessed with that for years. Really? Yeah, because of my conversations with Randall Carlson and Graham Hancock.

And Graham Hancock is the one who did that. There's a recent Netflix special, a series, it's really amazing, called Ancient Catastrophe, right? Did I say it right? Apocalypse. Ancient Apocalypse. And this is, it's all about what's called the Younger Dryas Impact Theory, which is somewhere around 11,800 years ago, the Earth got fucking pelted with asteroids.

And there's all this physical evidence in the form of nanodiamonds, these micro diamonds that are created upon impact when these giant rocks slam into the earth, just the heat and the power and the pressure. And then also iridium. Iridium, which is very common in space, but very rare on earth. There's a layer of iridium all over the earth around this time, around 11,800 years ago.

And this also coincides with the end of the ice age. And Randall Carlson's life's work has been explaining how this has this impact that happened. And they know exactly what it is. It's through a very specific meteor shower that we pass through every June and every November. And that you see the meteor showers in the sky and everybody looks at them. But passing through that, occasionally, a big one goes through. And those big ones, he thinks, slammed into the ice that was covering North America. Because at that point in time, during the Ice Age, North America had a sheet of ice covering half of it that was like a mile, two miles high. And all that stuff is what you see when you see the Great Lakes.

That's melted ice. And that he thinks that it happened almost instantaneously And that these things slammed into the ice they slammed into parts of the world and that that is the flood story from the Bible That's the epic of Gilgamesh That's all these different things and it also shows why there's all these like super sophisticated structures It seemed to be thousands of years older than they previously thought they were these like super sophisticated structures it seemed to be thousands of years older than they previously thought they were so what him and and Graham Hancock have come up with and that's what's in this ancient apocalypse

documentary is that at one point in time there was an incredibly sophisticated society that lived on earth and that's the Africans the Egyptians what they had done in you know whatever thousands of years it was that they built that stuff because it's under dispute as to how old it really is it's the very earliest the very least it's 2500 bc but they think it's way older than that and these people had technology that we still don't understand we don't know what they use we don't know how they did it but they moved two million three hundred thousand stones that were tons Some of them for from hundreds of miles they cut obelisks out of the mountains and moved them a thousand miles

They don't have no idea how they did it. They have no idea what they used to cut them They have no idea what they used to move them and you're talking about people at that point in time You know when you're dealing with five thousand six thousand years ago We thought they were like hunter-gatherers. Like, how did they do that? If it's really 10,000 years old, 12,000 years old, 20,000 years old, what kind of sophisticated culture exists that went on a different path than we went on? We went on the path of internal combustion engines and electricity and computers. electricity and computers, they might have gone on a similarly advanced or more advanced way,

but with a completely different angle. They came at technology from a completely different space. And that's what we see when we see those stone structures. I'm worried that that could happen to us. And I'm worried that if something like that did happen, there would be very little evidence And I'm worried that if something like that did happen, there would be very little evidence of the society that's left. You'd have a small group of people that survived and lived in fucking utter barbaric conditions. And I think that's also why people are so fucking savage. When you look at human beings like 6,000, 5,000 years ago, what we're probably seeing, according to Graham Hancock and a lot of other people now at this point in time are coming to this conclusion, is a re-emergence of civilization, not the birth of civilization. What we think of as the emergence of civilization, we think of Babylonia and ancient Sumer, and this is the first mathematics, the first written

language, the first agriculture. And what they think now is this is just a rebirth of Complicated society and that for the six thousand years plus after the impacts It was probably hell on earth and the people that survived were fucking monsters Yeah, just monsters and that is probably why people were so fucking savage Post the construction of this insanely complex civilization in Egypt. I mean, what they did in Africa to this day is one of the most puzzling things that archaeologists have to ponder. Like how? What is this insanely sophisticated society that existed that built these structures and left behind no record of how they did it.

All the burning of the Library of Alexandria, all the ancient work that they had, where they had passed down what had happened, all that was gone when they got attacked and they burnt down the library. I know. I love that so much of science is so unknown still. Yeah. Isn't that cool, man? That's pretty cool. Sometimes I think that our society gets super caught up on how sophisticated and how smart we all with different theories and ideas because it reminds everyone that we're not all as smart as we sometimes think. Because I do think that we live in a society

where we think that we're so much smarter than the humans that were around 5,000, 6,000 years ago when really it's the same body, same brain. We just got more shit. Yeah, we probably aren't as smart as the Egyptians. It's really likely that what they had figured out, again, it's probably hard for us to understand what kind of technology they used

because it doesn't exist anymore. So someone would have to figure something out that's some groundbreaking breakthrough technology that will people go, oh, that's how they did it. And then we'll know and then we'll understand. But right now, we're less sophisticated in terms of our ability to move stone and make stone construction than they are. There's no evidence that there was big machines.

There's no hieroglyphs that show cranes. So what? What the fuck did they do? No one knows. Oh, no. I don't even know how to use a compass. I'd be like one of the first ones dead, dude. Compass is easy.

Yeah. I mean, just keep it away from magnets. It points towards the north. Yeah. a compass i'd be like one of the first ones dead dude i'd be like this is easy yeah i mean just keep it away from magnets it points towards the north yeah i like being from colorado i'm like that way's west you know like so that's nice but i think that it would be a shame if like the world did end and there was like people scattering to like survive because i'd spend my whole life just learning how to fight and then like probably be one of the first ones to die because i have no directional no survival skills at all. You'd learn them.

People would learn them. People adapt. They adapt quickly. That's true. We'd figure it out. But you look at all these movies of apocalypses, it's all the same story. Everybody reverts to barbarism.

It's just horrific conditions, and people are terrible. That's The Walking Dead. That's everything. The Walking Dead is not really about zombies. It's about what happens to people. Yeah. Yeah Walking Dead. That's like everything. The Walking Dead is not really about zombies. It's about what happens to people. Yeah. Yeah, shit, that would be sad. Yeah, we're like building something

that allows us to somehow or another change and evolve past our primate savage ancestry. But every time that goes away, we revert right back to it. Every time society collapses, power goes out, no more food, you have to survive on your own, ancestry but every time that goes away we were right back to it mmm-hmm every time society collapses power goes out no more food you have to survive on your own we go right back yeah that's a shame but we kind of know that that's why those movies are so appealing because we know that if the shit went down it would

be horrible yeah it'd be hard and people would do the worst things they possibly could in order to get by I wonder if I even would sometimes like I wonder if I just be like you know what I'm just not gonna do that I'm they possibly could in order to get by. I wonder if I even would sometimes. Like, I wonder if I'd just be like, you know what? I'm just not going to do that. I'm just going to go in this corner and die. Bro, you'd be fucking strapping animal skins on, making armor. Yeah, you would. Yeah.

You would. You would take the same mentality that you have towards fighting, and you would apply that towards war. Yeah. That's what I think. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I think it's a proxy for war.

I think MMA is a proxy for war I think MMA is a proxy for war I think it's it's like a thing that substitutes what is inside of all of us it's why it's so appealing yeah that's why dudes love it and it's also why dudes love the fact

that you can do that and still be cool to each other afterwards and hug everybody loves a fucking war and then when dudes high five and hug it's very emotional

yeah yeah i agree yeah and yeah mma is beautiful in so many ways we're transcending we're with i mean and i think that allows it it's like mma is a way that humans transcend and you transcend the barbaric nature that you have and funnel it to something that's absolutely beautiful. It's MMA's beautiful. It is. It's really, you know, like there was that famous thing where who was that actress that said, you know, she was talking about the arts

and she said, and not mix martial art. Who was that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who was that? Some older lady. Meryl Streep. Yeah, it was a great actress, but she doesn't know. It's okay.

She's got some silly idea that she thinks acting is the end all be all and that's the arts yeah martial arts is a fucking art when i watched your performance against marlin that was artistic to me thanks i was like god damn that's beautiful thank you it's beautiful yeah yeah it totally i think everything's an art if you get good enough at it and you love it enough uh like actually you know what i i i really i, love all of the arts, you know? Like, I love poetry, music, all of it. Comedy.

I think that it's beautiful that you guys, like, sit in a room, think of, like, all kinds of cool shit about life that's funny, write it down, and then, like, go perform it on stage. That's pretty cool. It's a fun art. It's a fun. I get jealous of you guys because your guys' job is to sit there, come up with funny stuff that connects with people, and that's what you guys do. And the performing piece, of course, but just the writing out stuff that connects with people, that sounds like a really beautiful thing. It's like writing music or something. It's a fun gig, and I've been doing it for 30 plus years, and I'm still obsessed with it. What's your favorite part about it?

The creation of new stuff, for sure. Yeah, that's my favorite part about fighting too. Mmm Interesting. I think what keeps you interested Yeah there's probably parallels in everything like when you learn a new skill and you have a new thing and then you can execute it and it Becomes a thing and with whether one of the things that I love about comedy too Is that you have to constantly come up with new stuff and the audience, know, they want to hear some of the old stuff because they love the bits, but they really want to hear that new shit. Like hit me with some surprise shit.

What's some new stuff you've been working on? And that's one of the cool things about this place that I opened, The Mothership, is that it's designed entirely for the creation of comedy. We have two shows in the little room every night and two shows in the big room every night. And comics are hopping back and forth from one show to the other. We have two shows in the little room every night and two shows in the big room every night. Cool. And comics are hopping back and forth from one show to the other. And we have this thing that my friend Brian Simpson hosts this show called Bottom of the Barrel. And it's a barrel, like a little whiskey barrel.

And the audience at the beginning of the show, they get index cards. And they get to write down an idea for a premise. And it's in the barrel. And you reach into the barrel and you pull out a thing. it'll say, like, reincarnating the woolly mammoth. And then you go, okay, what do I think about that? I'm going tonight. That's what I'm going to write down then. I don't think that's tonight.

That's Tuesday night. I love, like, creative things like that, though. Like, whose line is it anyway? Yes. Dude, I used to love whose line is it anyway. You know, like, just improv like that to me is, that's like, yeah, that's an art separate from its own, like writing down and doing standup.

That's like its own little art. Yeah, that's like creativity in the moment. It's like when you're in a fight and you improvise something out of nowhere. Yeah. And it just, it works. You just see an opening, like, I think I can do this. And you just do it. And it's like, it just see an opening like i think i can do this and you just do it and it's like it's not even like i think i can do it you just recognize that

that thing is there and then do it yeah and then yeah like anything that's so like boom boom boom boom boom is cool freestyle rap is really cool all of that stuff is super cool yeah freestyle rap is cool but i i'm a giant fan of of 90s hip-hop because those dudes wrote everything out. The lyrics were so complex and they twisted and turned. I'm a big fan of Gangstar and listening to some of their old lyrics. God damn, they're so creative. The Wu-Tang Clan was super cool. Oh my God.

They were just a bunch of dudes in probably their just like watching kung fu movies and writing raps. Yeah. How cool is that? The coolest. To this day they transcend. To this day, you know, Wu-Tang's for the children. Were you a Biggie or Tupac guy? Both.

Yeah, yeah. Both, but Biggie more. Yeah, me too. I love Tupac. I do too. Tupac was amazing. But I'm a fan of braggadocious shit talking hip hop. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And nobody did it better than Biggie. Do you ever watch freestyle rap battles on YouTube? Sure. Dude, they go at each other with some of the things that they say. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes they fucking hit each other and shit. I love that kind of shit too. I love watching people be aggressive and confrontational.

I love that shit, bro. Why do you like that because you're you although you fight very aggressive and confrontational you're a very calm and relaxed guy yeah definitely uh i'm like fascinated with people man like soup like i went to school for psychology i worked at a residential treatment facility for kids like i've done everything that i've ever done is like involved like some type of psychology or whatever and i love and it sucks to say but i love watching like uh shitty dating shows too online because there's dude there's so much confrontation that happens and i love witnessing people in confrontational scenarios and just seeing like what happens to the human person as

they're like dealing with a ton of stress. Like I remember in college, bro, I used to love going into like test day and just watching everyone freak out. Like that was like my favorite shit. Like I love watching people get nervous. It is fun. It's fun to watch the nervous system

and the mind get overloaded and all the possibilities and the thinking and just the fear and the just anxiety they just start being weird dude i love i love watching people be weird just because they're nervous yeah it's fun it is fun it's well it's it's also i guess we're also accumulating an information database we're like educating ourselves as to why and how the the person and we apply it to ourselves like what would i do how would i handle that yeah yeah yeah i gotta stay cool if that happens to me don't do that yeah yeah don't

panic don't don't get in your feelings yeah one of like the a cool thing that i learned when i used to work at that residential treatment center was uh like we'd have to like like uh so it was with kids from like five to about like 12 or 13 or whatever uh all came from like abuse backgrounds but i would love to just see how you could tell that they were feeling a certain way based off their actions just being differently like i thought that that was really fascinating it was like my first time in life where i was like oh yeah i guess like when i do pace around a little bit i i guess like that's me just acting out some type of, like, nervousness that I have going on inside of me.

But I learned a ton from that place, too. That was, like, watching a lot of people be in confrontation all the time, and their kids, too, because kids are just, like, so innocent and pure and don't know how to hide anything. So everything that they're feeling, they just feel. One of my favorite moments about a fight is the stare down at the weigh-ins oh yeah there's something about the stare down the weigh-ins you know where i'm very fortunate that i interview the fighters right so i introduce them and then when dana brings the

two of them together i get right there and i look at these guys looking at each other in the eyes and some of them are talking shit. But there's this there's this thing going on where they're both very aware of this moment. And it's like, how are you dealing with it and how calm can you stay and how prepared are you and how, you know, how composed are you? And it's a wild moment, man. It is a wild moment. I watch for that when I see my opponents walk out, too. I watch for like the same types of things. It's interesting.

You have a very specific pacing style that you do when you're getting prepared. When Bruce Buffer is introducing you, by the way, that motherfucker is the best. Yeah, Bruce is the man. He's the best. Dude, I heard him practicing one time. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I forget which hotel it was at, or maybe it was at that Vegas one.

But I hear something in the background, like him making noise, or him practicing saying the people's names. And I was like, damn, this fool takes that job serious. Oh, yeah. Well, you have to. Some of those names are brutal. Yeah. Some of the Russian names, like Jesus Christ, they're so complex.

I just thought it was so cool that he was like practicing it. I was like I love that Oh, he's very serious about it, and there's no one better man when that guy goes Close to 70 years old and this fucking dude's head turns like a grape yeah He screamed like one day We're gonna lose him and he's gonna drop dead and it would be like the most appropriate way for a guy like him to die. A legend to have a heart attack, like interviewing a world championship fight. You know, I mean. He needs to have an offspring soon.

Right. We need a little buffer. It'll be the third buffer. Yeah. The third buffer. Do you know he didn't even know his brother until he was like a grown man? I heard that. Isn't that wild?

Yeah, that is crazy. And then the UFC couldn't afford his brother. that they got Bruce mmm cuz Michael was the fucking man Let's get ready to run Everybody would go crazy. That was the thing and Bruce, you know, if you go back he was kind of learning on the job I mean he was good at it in the beginning But he became the Bruce Buffer that we see now like he was not that intense in the early days He just sort of did it like a regular guy, like a regular announcer. But then as time went on, he just fucking ramped up the intensity.

And he's such a fan. I mean, that dude fucking loves the fights. Like, I'll meet him backstage, and he's like, what do you think? What do you think about this? What do you think about that card? And we'll start going over the cards. What do you think about that one? Whoa, this is exciting.

This is exciting. And then you see it in his fucking face when he's out there. You know, when he's right in front of him. Adesanya! It's like, woo! I get goosebumps. Seriously. I'm like, God damn, I'm sitting in my chair.

I'm like, holy shit. Woo! Yeah. You're in for it this weekend. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. I know. Out of all the things I do, man, I do a lot of fun things, but doing commentary for the UFC is one of the most fucking exciting things

a person could ever do. Yeah. I feel so honored and so privileged that I get to be a person who's talking about this while people are experiencing it, and then I get to just somehow or another accentuate it or give life to it or, or give my thoughts to it or, or just express my excitement and that it's contagious and people feel it and feed off of it.

Live fights are insane too, man. Like when I get the chills, man, when I'm like there and then it's the last fight and all, everything goes dark. And then just the spotlight, the whole arena is dark and just the the spotlight, the whole arena's dark

and just the spotlight are on the two fighters. What a moment, man. What a moment. What a moment. It gives me the chills every time. I remember when Sinead O'Connor sang Conor McGregor's walkout song and the whole place went dark and then green lights for Ireland and you're just like, like holy shit and just goosebumps on

top of goosebumps it was is this it look at this the green lights dude this was so fucking intense which fight was this This is Madison Square Garden. Oh, MGM. This is MGM. This is insane. What is this? An Irish song? Yeah. It's called The Foggy Dude. Yeah. What the fuck you do?

Was this the Jose Aldo fight? Might be. Mendes. Mendes. Okay, so this is when he won the interim title. There he is. He looks so different at 45. I know, man. He was a skeleton. Yeah, there was no one like Conor McGregor at that time, man.

You talk about a dude who fucking was big for the weight class. Yeah. At 145, when he would weigh in, he would look like a dead man. Because that was the days when you had the real weigh-in. When the guy got on the scale, like, you didn't have a chance to rehydrate. You actually had to make weight in front of the crowd. So you'd see Conor, and he looked like a dead man. He looked like a guy who'd been in a concentration camp.

Like he'd been starving himself. And then also the next day, but that was also the days of the IV. You were allowed to rehydrate. It was the official broadcast. They had the two. Same, same, but better camera work. The bravest fell on the requiem bell

Rang more and fully unclear Bell on the Requiem bell rang morn fully and clear For those who died that Eastertide in the springing of the year While the world did gaze with deep amaze at those fearless men. But fear... You want to talk about a dude who just eats pressure. He was fearless, dude. That's like what separated Conor McGregor. That's why I don't know that there will ever be anyone that's really like him

is because that dude was walking the walk and he was fearless man like he was fearless and the fights that he would take i think when he fought chad what it was like short notice right it was short notice and he had a fucked up knee his knee was really fucked up he really couldn't wrestle in that fight he couldn't grapple even taking a fight against chad on short notice man chad mendez was a freak he was a fucking tank yeah he was a tank. He was a fucking tank. Yeah. He was a tank. Yeah. He's fighting bare knuckle against Eddie Alvarez. I saw that. Wild. That's soon.

That's crazy. I think that's next weekend. Is that next weekend or the weekend after that? It's soon. It's this month. Yeah, it's in Colorado. Because Luke Rockhold is fighting Mike Perry. Yep, it's in Colorado.

I'm going to go. Woo! Yeah. What day is that? April 29th. April 29th. What am I doing? What is April 29th? Isn't there something else going on that night isn't that also the Toronto card

Is that the Toronto UFC card No, but there is a UFC card that night Oh Oh, it's a fight night bare Bare Knuckle seems a little crazy. I'd do Bare Knuckle if you could elbow, though. If you could elbow, I'd do Bare Knuckle. I don't want to just punch people and fuck up my hands. You definitely would fuck up your hands. If I could elbow people, though, I think I would be able to handle it.

I wonder why they don't allow that. That always confused me, too. Yeah. They might as well. That'd be awesome. Imagine, that'd be a cool sport. Just punches and elbows. Oh my God.

Yeah. Well, the really crazy striking sport is left way. Have you ever seen one live? Left way? Yeah. No. I saw one live. They had it in Wyoming.

I like went up. It was like the last one. Dudes headbutting each other. Was David LeDuc there? Did he fight there? Is he like a... He's the top guy. He's a fucking savage. I want to say

it was one of the top guys. Is he like a bald white dude? Yeah. I think so. Bald, skinny white dude. Yep. That guy's a fucking savage. Dude, he was in the back warming up headbutting. Yeah, he headbutts pads. He incorporates headbutts into his pad work. I mean, I don't see...

Why wouldn't you be allowed to headbutt? Why wouldn't you be allowed? I mean, Mark Coleman... You could do way worse shit. I mean, I don't see, I mean, why wouldn't you be allowed to headbutt? Why wouldn't you be allowed? I mean, Mark Coleman. You could do way worse shit. Mark Coleman, when he was the fucking king,

would take guys down, get them in their guard, and headbutt the fuck out of them. Dude. That was a big part of his strategies, beating the shit out of you when you're on the ground,

including headbutts. Oh my God, that would be awesome. Yeah. That would be pretty awesome. I think it should be allowed. Why not? I don't understand why it isn't, and I also think that you should be able to knee a downed opponent in the head.

I do too. Especially when someone's in a turtle position. Like if they shoot for a shot and they sprawl and you're sitting there, why can't you knee them? Because their knees are on the ground? Seriously. Makes zero sense. What do you think about soccer kicks? I think soccer kicks should be legal.

I do too. You should figure out a way to not get soccer kicked. Yep, I agree. And if the referee thinks that someone is compromised and they're going to get soccer kicked, they want to stop the fight, stop the fight before that happens. But if you see what they're doing in one FC where they allow those soccer kicks, it's a big factor. And it's a real factor in real fighting. And this is supposed to be the sport of real fighting.

I think the only argument against it is the cage. Because the cage prevents a guy from moving because you're pressed there and then you get stomped or soccer kicked and there's really no way to get out of that. I feel like if you wanted to have soccer kicks and stomps you really should have an open arena.

Which I've been a supporter of anyway. I think cages get in the way of the view. It's a factor in the fight. It allows guys to get up where they ordinarily wouldn't be the view. It's a factor in the fight. It allows guys to get up where they ordinarily wouldn't be able to. There's a lot of things that happen with the octagon. I know the octagon's iconic, and I know people love it, but it doesn't really help the fight.

How big would you make the arena? I'd make it like a basketball court. That would be awesome. If you can have basketball in a basketball court, and these guys are all running around and doing all that, I mean, there's so much room for these guys to run. Why can't you have a place where you have a center, where you're supposed to compete in, and you have a red line that's a considerable size that if it gets too far over that,

you have to come back in? That would be awesome. I think it's better. We should start our own promotion. Maybe fucking boxing with elbows in an arena? Well, ifc was going to do anything i would want them to do kickboxing because i think that is the untapped thing i know they're all high on this slap boxing thing the slap fighting thing and i know that that gets a

lot of money and a lot of people love it and watch it on tiktok that's great but if you really wanted to have another thing that that has the potential to gigantic, I think it's world championship kickboxing. I agree with you. The one in one, it's awesome. It's awesome. It's so awesome. It's awesome.

There's so many good fights. I love what one's doing. I love that they incorporate grappling matches. They have strict grappling matches. And then they have these MMA fights and they have kickboxing with little gloves. It's fucking great. Yeah, kickboxing with little gloves is cool with little gloves. It's fucking great. Yeah. Kickboxing with the little gloves is cool. It is. It's fucking great. And they have Muay Thai and they have kickboxing. They have different rules for different kinds of competitions they

have over there. And it expresses all the different aspects of martial arts. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. They should, that would be badass. They should 100% do that. Yeah. It'd be super cool too, to just like see how people do in an mma fight and then have the same two fight and just a kickboxing fight you know yeah i think people would love that dude i i actually think that it's really sad that the sport of kickboxing isn't a lot bigger than what it is right now i think it's sad because it's such a beautiful art it's the best i love it i love it. I mean look I'm a fan of all combat sports I love jujitsu. I love kickboxing, but I Think that's the one thing that's untapped because it's the one of the most exciting aspects of MMA

And it's not an individual sport that of note dude imagine getting San Chai in a UFC fight with just Small gloves. Oh my god against Wrestling the way they do the NCAA wrestling? Yeah, what I don't like is the drop-off. See, the drop-off is dangerous. Yeah, that's dangerous. And I watched Ben Askren when he wrestled Jordan Peters, or Jordan Burroughs, rather, and Jordan took him over the top.

I'm like, that's not, you can get hurt bad. Yeah, you'll break your neck. You just put it on the ground then. What's that? Or if they just didn't have it raised. Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Have it on the ground and have a space that's even a little bit larger than that and have a red area on the outside that's probably double the size of that outer black area

where you cannot, like, when you get into that area, there's plenty of room to make your way back in, but the referee makes you get back in and you have to fight in the center. And, you know, have it so that you have to chase a guy down. I mean, you know, and people will boo. But guess what? When you get a takedown in that you have to chase a guy down. I mean, you know, and people will boo. But guess what? When you get a takedown in that environment, it's a real takedown. And when you get back up, you're really going to have to get back up.

You can't wall walk. You can't make your way up to the side of the cage and press your back up against it and, you know, and stand back up. What do you think about no rounds? I like that. I like that, too. I like that a lot. I think it'd be like, you know, maybe like you could still do rounds, but what if we started rounds where the last round ended?

That'd be cool, I think. Why not? You know, almost like a halftime, you know? Like you still get the same amount of points, but now it's just second half. But like if you end up on bottom at the end of the first round, then you start on bottom in the beginning of the second. That's not a bad idea at all. That'd be cool.

That's not a bad idea at all. I mean, I idea at all i mean i think you know chael sun and said it best he said no one should be fighting for 25 minutes it's just so hard it's so grueling for you that no one can fight full blast as you know so you have to pace yourself you have to figure it out it's just you're asking so much of a body to be able to do that. I can't move after. What's it like? The next day, I literally can't move. Like even in the last one where I didn't even take a ton of damage, like I'm literally in bed. My entire body is sore.

Like I'm sore in weird places that I had no idea that I had gotten hit. And I literally like when I tried to move, like I'll sit there with my ankles up because my ankles always get really swollen because i kick knees all the time but i'll sit there with my legs up and like to move over and roll over or go to the bathroom or whatever is like for like an entire day and then it's a little better the next day and then kind of gone by the third day but the next day is horrible does anything mitigate it ice baths or anything i take ice baths uh and i do the hot tub like for the like day after the next day after and the next day after just like flush it all out because there's so much swelling that's going on what's the most significant injury you've ever had i don't really get super hurt man like uh yeah i really don't really get super hurt, man. Really? Yeah, I really don't. I tore my pectoral one time.

I broke this thumb. But other than that, man, not too many serious things. I was told by a couple people that, or by my PT, that I have some of the thickest cheekbones that he's ever seen. And then the dentist told me that I have some of the thickest enamel or whatever it is around my teeth. So I think I have, I know I'm skinny and lanky but I think I have like some pretty hard-ass bones like I really I don't like break stuff that's very beneficial yeah yeah I mean there's so many fighters that

go through their career and they get marred with injuries and they have injury after injury and they either they push through it or they never quite recover and you see the drop off in their performance they're never quite the same i super take care of myself though like uh that's like uh that's like another thing that i think i do really really well is like step a is like get better but like slightly underneath that is like don't get hurt because if you get hurt you can't do anything for like weeks or months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the scariest injury to me in MMA is the shin break.

Yeah. That's a wild one, man. We've seen that three or four times now, and every time you see it, the guy's really never the same again. And the Conor one is fascinating to me because we haven't seen – I've seen him sparring, and it looks like he's like using that left leg and throwing kicks and everything. But how is that going to hold up in an actual fight?

Yeah, I hear that they heal pretty decently, but who knows? But look at Chris Weidman. He's still fucked. It's been two years. I mean, he had real problems with that. He had to get it reset because the bones weren't healing together properly. It's a fucking nightmare. It's a fucking nightmare. It's a real sport, you know?

Like, that's what I, I was talking to my buddy the other day. I go, you know, because a lot of it's about the entertainment piece and, you know, talking shit and all of the interviews leading up to it or whatever, which I don't always enjoy the most. But I, like, was saying, I was like, once we're in the cage, there's no more entertainment show happening. Like it's a fight at that point.

And like it feels like it's real as hell. It's as real as it gets. I mean, I know that used to be the UFC logo, as real as it gets. Oh, cool. That was the catchphrase. But it is as real as it gets. Yeah. With the given set of rules that, you know,

it's the best set of rules that we have for combat sports. I't think what we were talking about before the knees on the ground i think is huge because i think you shouldn't just be able to turtle up like that it doesn't make any sense it doesn't make any sense that all you can do is punch them to the body or kick them to the body or you know take their back you should be able to knee them in the head and you saw it in pride when you know mark coleman did that a bunch of times when he got guys down he just dropped knees on their heads yeah you know ben askren did that in bunch of times. When he got guys down, he just dropped knees on their heads. Yeah. You know, Ben Askren did that in one. When he competed in one, it was a market change because now he's allowed to use not just takedowns but knee guys in the head when he had them taken down. Brutal.

Yeah, it should be allowed. It should be allowed. Figure out how to not have that happen to you. I mean, it's just one more thing to defend against. And I think we're kind of allowing, because of the rule set right now, we're allowing these positions where it's unrealistically safe. You're not really safe there at all. You're in a very vulnerable position. But because of the rule set, you can pull that off and you could actually use it as a strategy to stay in that position while the guy has to do something

different. Yeah. How do you feel about punching in the back of the head? I definitely don't think that that should be allowed. We talked about that recently, but because I think why not? Because some knockouts are from the back of the head, like head kicks, like say if like Wonder Boy loves to throw that over the shoulder, like sneaky kind of question mark style kick. When you do that, you're hitting the guy in the back of the head, you know, many times, you know, a lot of the head kicks, it wraps around and you're really shitting the guy in the back of the head, you know, many times. You know, a lot of the head kicks, it wraps around, and you're really shinning the person on the back of the head. Yeah, I guess I would have to know, like, the science of, like, the denseness of the skull behind. What about the temple, though? Yeah, good point.

Temple's, like, the fucking most vulnerable area of your skull. It's so thin. Look at us. If you hold us, this is not a real skull, but this area is like, it's so fucking vulnerable. Your temple, like, I would not want to get hit here, man. It's such a bitch-ass part of your head. Like, it hurts just poking it, right? Poke your temple, that hurts.

Why do we have those? I don't know. Why do we have balls? Why do we have balls hanging out, you know? It's like so much of the design of the human body. So we can show them off? Maybe, right? I think it's actually a cooling thing. I think it's supposed to be to keep your balls Cooler so that you have more sperm because one of the things that is really affects sperm growth and development is heat

Yeah, so if you had your balls inside your body all protected and you were hot from running or something like that You probably have bad jizz Yeah, you don't want bad. You you don't want bad jizz you want good jizz if you want to make babies you want to make babies you got to have cool balls so i guess it's something about the balls being outside the body where it's not as dependent upon the heat of the body i don't know great job evolution yeah a lot of wacky stuff why are eyeballs so vulnerable? Oh, that's another thing that's going on this weekend is UFC is debuting a new set of gloves. Oh, cool.

Yeah. I have maintained, and I still do, that Trevor Whitman makes the fucking best MMA gloves that have ever existed. And I think that everybody should use those gloves. I put those Onyx gloves on before. They make your hand completely curved. They still allow grappling,

but it keeps your hand like this where you don't have as many eye pokes nice and these new gloves there's a video of Gilbert Burns explaining it and Gilbert is showing let's see we go here let's put this those are them yeah you kind of make you your fingers go down so less I poke I like it see my hands are relaxed he goes here doesn't stay here oh that's smart way better for no no eye poke i like i like these new gloves so this is a new one so hopefully that's going to make a difference um i think that's uh been a

thing that a lot of people have complained about is that the old ufc gloves they encourage your hands to be in an open position and when guys are fighting like this and they're running like eye pokes are one of the worst fucking things about the sport i scratch my eye almost every fight really almost every single fight i i have like a so i got that prk surgery it's like lasik it's except they like seal up i got it like six seven years ago or whatever and still if i get hit right in the eye or even like a digit goes in my eye even a little bit the rest of my night is ruined because i'm like sitting there all night going like this it happens after almost every single fight you ever scratched your eye yeah it's the worst pain that i've ever felt in my life it's horrible it's horrible i remember one time i

did it because it used to happen all the time for me like i don't know if i would re-get prk surgery it doesn't happen anymore really only in fights but uh one time it happened and i like remember being on the couch i had to call my mom to come pick me up to take me to the hospital because i thought it was like really messed up and the next day my body hurt because i was doing this just for hours for hours i was doing that it hurts so bad jim miller apparently you talk about a durable guy that's another guy that's never had an injury a real injury which is crazy all the fucking wars that guy's been in but he got poked real bad in his last fight and he's got some sort of a cataract now and he's trying to figure out whether or not he should keep competing or get surgery on the eye. You should wear swim goggles.

That would be crazy. It would be crazy. That would be ridiculous. It would be ridiculous. It would solve the problem. I guess, but is there a way to put swim goggles on where they wouldn't get fogged up and wouldn't get... Dude, that would hurt worse. What about blood?

What about if somebody gets a cut on their forehead and they're on top of you, ground upon, they're just bleeding all your goggles, and then you get up and you can't see, and you wipe it away, but you're smeared. Now you're looking at, like, a fucking dirty windshield. Have you seen that fight where I get armbarred by Yuri? You got to see it, man. You haven't seen that fight? I probably have. It was early in my career.

It was, like, my second fight in the UFC or something. It's one of the fights that I feel like I'm kind of known for a little bit. But Yuri gets me in, like, a really bad armbar, and I'm, like, triangled. He's straight of the fights that I feel like I'm kind of, that I'm kind of known for a little bit, but Yuri gets me in like a really bad arm bar and I'm like triangled. He's straightening out my arm bar. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so this is like early in my career. I even look kind of like a young dude, but dude, so he starts hitting me or whatever and blood, uh, pretty soon. Yep. There you go. Yep. He's just hammering my face, but dude, so the blood starts going into my eye. So like this situation just gets going into my eye. So this situation just gets a hundred times worse because now I'm just

having this pink fog in my eye. It was horrible. People forgot about Yuri. Yuri Alcantara was a beast. Dude, when I fought him, he had 20 UFC fights. I remember this because you got out of this. And it was wild. Yeah, but all of this blood, I can't see

anything because all of the blood is still in my eye. It was wild. Yeah, but all of this blood, I can't see anything because all of the blood is still in my eye. It was crazy. But when you did get out of it, I remember thinking, oh, shit. I was so mad. I was so mad. I was like, I'm going to fucking kill this guy. The whole time I was like, when I get fucking out of this, it was like a little brother had me in a thing,

and I was like, you motherfucker, when I get out of this, I'm going to beat your ass so bad. How bad was your arm uh it was pretty hurt uh it wasn't like uh broken or anything but I had bruising from the wrist all the way up so I definitely tore some stuff did you have to take much time off after that to heal it up uh like a few weeks the elbows heal really quick actually like I've never hurt my elbow so bad where I've had to take more than six weeks off. There's some armbar finishes in the UFC where you just go, oh, God. Like Jamal Hill when he fought Paul Craig. Paul Craig dislocated his arm.

We were sure it was broken. We were sure he snapped it. I mean, probably some bones chipped off. Paul Craig has a motherfucker of a guard. That's the dude with the beard? Yeah. Yeah, he's good. The Bear Jew.

He calls himself the Bear Jew, which is one of the greatest nicknames ever. But that guy's got a fucking wicked guard, man. His guard is so dangerous. Yeah. You know, he catches people with that fucking guard where you're like, God damn. It's like a world-class jiu-jitsu guard. Submission artists are awesome. They're like just as cool as KO artists.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. If you get a real elite one that can pull stuff like that off, you know, I mean, look how many times Charles Oliveira submitted people. It's like so intense. That guy gets like some juice behind his finishes too. That guy knows how to make himself powerful. He's a fascinating guy because you want to talk about a guy who got completely transformed.

Like in the early days of his career, he was talented. But when things got hard, he would kind of fold. And something happened. And I think they attributed to the birth of his daughter that he just became just far more serious and far more intense and just like really believed that he was the fucking man. And then went on this tear, just a fucking tear, running through guys. That happens, man. I really think that a lot of stuff in life is just making the decision to do it. Once you fully commit to the decision to do something, that can change your life, man.

And I think that that's what he did. It changed him, too. It changed his perception, the people's perceptions of him, because people had this idea of who he was and then once he beat like gaethje and he beat all these no one had that perception anymore once he beat chandler and everyone was like this guy is a motherfucker and it was you watched it all it wasn't like he had those fights overseas and other organizations and then he figured it out no he did it in the biggest stage of the world and made that transformation from getting

KO'd by Cub Swanson, getting beat up by Paul Felder. And then all of a sudden, this guy fucking hits a switch. And he's a destroyer, one of the greatest champions ever. I really think it's like sometimes you just make a decision. Yeah. You know, you're like, fuck second fuck second place for now on fuck second place Do you ever worry that you won't know that you don't have the same commitment that you have now? Yeah, I do

So I used to train with Andy Sauer a bit in Holland like when I was 22 23 I went out there and I remember talking to him about that. And he was like, the passion, sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. Like I, I sometimes fight for paychecks, you know? And I remember at like 22, that was like such a thing for me to hear, you know? Cause I was like, Andy Sauer was like my idol you know and i love andy and i don't mean to tell that in a way where like this is that offends him it is kind of a reality you know he's a great fighter great fighter and then so i i remember like hearing that and i remember being like oh that's a possibility you know like you just run out of like the competitive

juice like yeah that does scare me i i don't i don't know that i'll do it past that unless i'm making like millions and millions of dollars then i'll maybe like look past that right something crazy comes along yeah yeah i i worry about that because i see it in certain fighters i see fighters that are in contention for the title and they just have this certain type of drive and then you see a few losses. And then you see them competing. And maybe they just don't look as hard. Like their body looks different. And then their endurance is not the same.

And you realize this guy is kind of phoning it in. And he was a world-class fighter at one point. I know. It's kind of a sad thing to see too. It is. Yeah, I really hope to never have to be that way. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won't. I, yeah, I really hope to never have to be that way. You know, maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't.

I don't know. It's a sad thing to see champions when their body is not working right anymore, but they think they're going to be able to pull that magic out. I know. And it just doesn't exist anymore. I think it's like, it's probably their loved ones on, it's like on those people to tell them to stop, huh? I mean because as like a fighter, I don't really know that it would I don't know if it'd be on me to tell me to stop You know like just being the fighter that like being the person that you got to be to be a fighter That really shouldn't ever cross your brain, right?

so you probably have to have loved ones around you to be like, hey man, like We're calling it. I think there's that. And then there's also the issue that for many fighters, that is their entire identity. Their entire identity is that they're a fighter. And losing that identity by becoming a former fighter and now being lost in the world and not knowing what direction to take or what to do with yourself, it's one of the hardest transitions because fighting is so all in. it's one of the hardest transitions because fighting is so all in it's so all-encompassing and so obsessive that once that's gone from from your life unless you're teaching unless you're

running an academy or running a gym or you know working with younger fighters it's hard to find something that will occupy your thoughts in the way that competing does yeah definitely i uh i was talking with someone last week just small talking with him him. I was with my fiance. He goes, so what do you guys like do for fun? And I kind of like look at Erica and I'm like, the fuck do we do for fun? You know, I don't know. We don't do anything. We watch trash television and then in the summer I'll play spike ball. You know, that's about it. Uh, but the identity thing is always something that i think is really interesting to me like um like uh just the human experience and trying to like create this like identity or latch on to some type of identity to me is like one of the things that uh humans i think need to dig really deep to try to overcome i think that that's like a piece of why we're here is to

overcome like just latching on to an identity and rocking with that for your entire life. You know, like that's like, that's something I feel like I had to do a lot, you know, coming up in the sport and just being like, okay, like you're not a fighter, you know, like you are a fighter, but only sometimes you're like,

really what you are is this like other thing, but fighter is just like a piece of it. You know, it's a it you know you're a human you're a human yeah and the fighting thing the thing the thing about identities is that they can be a trap like you could just like lean into that and use that like to sort of protect you from the just the weirdness of life like just the just the uncertainty the the just the uncertainty, just the existence. So instead, you're like, damn, I'm a bad motherfucker. I'm a this, I'm a that.

And you live in that. And then when that gets shattered, you're kind of fucked. Because if that gets questioned in a fight, if you lose your confidence in that in a fight, and that's the thing that you're banking on, instead of just existing and trying to make adjustments, now you're questioning like, my god and do i suck oh my god what do i do who am i i've been pretending that i'm this thing and now i'm getting my ass kicked yeah how do i recover from this yeah like the the the pull to like organize life in a way is you know something that we all kind of have to like do or deal with or whatever

but it feels better when things are organized you you know, and, uh, and, and when we have reasons for things, when I actually lost my first fight, that was when I really started getting into Buddhism was after I lost my first professional fight. Who was that to? Uh, it was against Jamal Emmers. Um, it was for LFA or RFA or whatever it was called at the time. But, uh, I remember being like, uh, oh uh oh shit what am i if i'm not like a this badass fighter that everyone's telling me if i win i'm gonna be in the ufc and i'm gonna be champ and blah blah blah like that like shattered my identity man it like really fucked me up for like the rest of that year like six or eight months i spent a ton of time in the mountains like hiking

and camping and like that's when I started meditating. I started getting into Buddhism because Buddhism is really about like letting go of all of your attachments. And that means like letting go of like the physical stuff, but also like the mental creation of whatever persona you're putting on in your life and stuff. And, uh,

the mountains helped me do that. They like assisted in all of that. But, uh, the, the battle with identity, I feel like I have like a pretty close, intimate relationship with because it's a son of a bitch to try to let go of all of that stuff. But you kind of have to, I think, at some point in your life if you want to really start being and expressing yourself the way that you want to.

Well, I think that's what's interesting about this conversation is that you have done so much of this work and you have done so much of this thinking about what that is and how that aids you and how that hurts you and and how it gets in the way yeah um i think that you just have to do it at some point in your life like uh that's even like i think one of the steps and like i follow carl young like kind of close he's like a little bit too dense for me to like fully understand but a part of like becoming individuated or becoming like enlightened or whatever word you want to use for it is letting go all that shit that like you learned when you were younger because like none of that was really you those were just things that you got indoctrinated into and like a part of i think the human experience and the human journey needs to be letting go all of that stuff and like letting go of all of that stuff really hurts, you know?

Yeah. Just letting go of these preconceived notions and, but the, the unease of uncertainty just haunts people. And you try to find these, these ways of being that protect you from that, this, uh, personality that you put on, that's like an armor that protects you from that this uh personality that you put on that's like an armor that protects you from from uncertainty yeah it gives you a community it gives you like other people that you feel like you can like walk through this thing with you know but at the end of the day it's kind of like just you and i think that like it's only you that can like figure out your shit can't be like a community of people that you're just going to identify with so that like things run a little bit smoother you know i don't really think you'll become like a full person how much do you think it helps your career that you teach

uh a ton uh i've been teaching for a really long time now though um and i've kind of had to pull back a little bit because i realized how much of a commitment it is to have fighters underneath you you know like it's not easy trying to make someone good so i've had to pull back on it a little bit honestly what's helped me a lot recently become really good uh and like really a lot deeply understand things is i've been writing out those instructionals uh and like that's helped me a lot. Just like organize the things that I'm doing and like, not like rules because rules can always be broken when I think that you're at a certain level, but like, man, right now writing shit out, like how things work really, really has helped me a ton. It's interesting because in jujitsu, you see that a

lot where people start teaching and when they start teaching they get way better yeah i think i i so i have this guy uh he's he's almost like a little brother i don't even ever or like a kid to me his name is elias rodriguez but he's like one of my main drilling partners he's a 21 year old kid i care about him deeply but I'm helping him go through his amateur years right now. And, uh, it's crazy how much like me helping him is him helping me because I get to watch, like I said, like I like watching people in, I like watching people in stressful situations. Cause I like to see how they act. Like I help Elias and that like has made me better understand things and all of that but also Elias is helping me a lot by me like seeing one if like the things that I'm teaching him is like working

in like all types of uh bodies you know like I feel like if you have a really true and tried system it's going to work for everyone to an extent but uh like just watching Elias go through everything is like really helping me understand the sport a lot better too and that's kind of like because I'm helping him he's able to do that for me but uh yeah that's been a really really helpful thing like the instruction piece I feel like I've been doing for so long so I can like kind of teach some people some stuff fairly well now but uh like bringing up a fighter has taught me a lot about being a fighter myself and and all of that so you have this big win over marlin what happens next how long do you does the ufc contact you immediately do you start talking to them about

what's next does it wait on the henry cejudo-Al Jermaine fight? I think it kind of does. I think so. I'm pretty sure O'Malley was promised a title fight after the Cejudo-Sterling. I don't know when that's going to be. I think that ideally the UFC will want to do it pretty soon, like maybe July, August soon, like not give whoever wins that too much of a break.

But Rob is still there I would love to fight Marab I think that that would be like an amazing challenge for me um there's also Umar Nurmagomedov who said that he was gonna be fighting against Marab I don't know how much truth there is to that but i know that the ufc i think is pretty high on umar he's a bad motherfucker he is he's very good um so it could be one of those guys but i would i would ideally like to fight in july or august like i said i get married september 1st and i like may you know like erica would understand if i had to be in camp for the wedding but that would like really break her heart kind of so i really want to i don't even care if it's a week before and i don't even think she cares if it's a week before if i fight but uh i would really like to fight before september 1st so that erica doesn't kill me well the july card's gonna be wild that's gonna be a good one and i don't know who's on that yet

i don't know if they have an announcement for that but they always do a big card. Volkanovski Yair Rodriguez, unification bout targeted for July. Whoa, that's a good one. That is a great one. That's a good one. Oh, my goodness. Yair looked great against Emmett. Fuck yeah, he did. He did great.

I mean, and Volk looked really great against Islam, too. He really did, yeah. But Volk at 145, what a fucking juggernaut. Seriously? Yeah, I am so impressed with that guy. I was so impressed in that Makachev fight. I'm like, I can't believe how well he did. I thought he won. I thought he did too.

I thought it was all about the second round. I thought he edged him in the second round and I thought that the way he performed in the fifth round, I think that should have cemented it. Yeah. Yeah, I was really impressed because I think that those Russian guys are obviously really good wrestlers. definitely world-class wrestlers. But I think what they were doing before a lot of the other people in the UFC is some people could get people down, but they couldn't really hold them.

And those guys know how to hold people down. And I think that that's the most fascinating thing to me about the Russians is that the wrestling piece, there's a lot of good American wrestlers too. But the Russians really know how to hold people down. And that was like what, what I think separates them from like the normal wrestler grappler archetype. But, uh, dude, the way Volkanovski was getting up against him was fantastic. It was amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Especially being down a weight class. Usually I was kind of surprised he didn't have a rematch. I mean, I know he wanted to defend his title and Yair Rodriguez,

obviously he won the interim title so he should get the next shot but it was such a big fight and such an insane fight. I would kind of like to see that again. Oh, definitely.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Well, Corey, you're a bad motherfucker. I appreciate you very much and I really love your mindset and the way you approach things and it's really fun

to watch you just keep getting better and make your way to the way you approach things. And it's, it's really fun to watch you just keep getting better and, and, and make your way to the top. Hell yeah. Thanks Joe. Thanks for having me on man. I appreciate you. Uh,

tell everybody your Instagram and all that stuff so they can find you. Uh, Corey Sanhagen, MMA on Instagram. I don't use Twitter ever. So, uh, yep.

Just Instagram. All right. Beautiful. Thank you. All right. Bye everybody.